


An Ineffective Cure For Evil

by Beserk



Series: An Ineffective Cure For Evil [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU 1970's America, AU Vampires, M/M, Period-Typical Racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-13 17:03:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16896531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beserk/pseuds/Beserk
Summary: In 1970's America, a group of vampires has been kidnapping humans to use as blood bags, forcing Albus Dumbledore to join forces with Gellert Grindelwald, a vampire with whom he has a tumultuous relationship and history.





	1. The Reemergence of Gellert Grindelwald

_Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow-creatures is amusing in itself_

_-James Anthony Froude_

_She can see the sun through slits in the wood. It caresses her skin, warms her. She puts her fingers up, intercepts the light, and keeps them there as long as she can before she's too exhausted and the hand falls down to her side of it's own accord. She tries to move herself closer to the wooden walls, so she can feel the sun on her face, but the chain stops her. She closes her eyes and tries to remember what it felt like, to have the sun on her face. It's hard to recall, it's been so long. She remembers the blasting light when she looked directly at the sun, but she can't remember the warmth. She's so cold, all the time, that it's hard to remember what it's like not to be._

_The cold helps, sometimes. It makes it much less horrible when they come for her. She's so cold her whole body has become numb, and she can barely feel it when they slip the IV into her arms. She grows weaker when the blood is drained from her body, but she's already so weak, weak and numb and cold, that it barely makes a difference. She barely feels it._

_It's worst when they leave, when they take it out and wheel the bags of blood away, and she's left feeling used, drained, taken over. Her whole existence is depended on her blood, and whenever they leave, she watches the bags, and thinks,_ was that enough? Did I give enough? _She knows what happens to those who don't make enough, who grow too weak to produce the required quantity. She's seen them being taken out, limp and motionless. They don’t come back. Someone else gets placed in their stall. Those are the worst days, the days where the new ones come. They scream and cry and beg, confused and scared and angry. After being so used to the silence, the sounds grate on her ears. She wants to yell back at them, to tell them to stop, that they're wasting valuable energy, that it's pointless, that no one is listening. But she doesn’t, because she never speaks anymore. Sometimes she still cries, but her tears are silent things dropping on her cheeks. And if she screams it's only in the confines of her own mind._

****

There's someone following them. They've felt his presence for the past few days, trailing them, watching them from the darkness. They can smell him in the air around them, but whenever they turn, whenever they attack the shadows where he must be, they find nothing. He's always a few steps ahead of them.

They take to only ever leaving their apartment together, striding side by side in preparation for an attack. When they feed, one stands guard to make sure no one sneaks up on them while they're in the middle of the feast, senses muddled by the sweet, sweet scent and taste of blood. It's incredibly annoying, when no one attacks. Someone watches, someone follows, but whoever it is doesn't make a move, seemingly content to remain in the shadows. They get the distinct sense that they are being played with.

"I can’t take this anymore," Harry growls as they return to the apartment, another night spent watching and waiting. He closes the shutters in preparation for the upcoming sun. "What does he want?"

"How do you know it's a 'he'?" Hermione asks, a half smile on her face as she falls down on the battered sofa. "Could be a 'she'."

"Could be a 'it' for all I care, I just want he-she-it to stop following us," Harry replies, settling down next to her. Hermione wiggles her feet on his lap. "And just attack already."

"Maybe he-she-it doesn't want to attack us," Hermione suggests. "Maybe he-she-it is running surveillance. You know what, just say he. Easier."

"If you're surveilling someone, shouldn't you try to _hide_ your presence?" Harry points out. "We've been aware of him for days now."

Hermione frowns, "I think maybe he's trying to scare us. He wants something."

"Such as?"

Hermione gives him a look. Whenever people want something from them, it's almost always connected to their creator.

"We should-"

"We're not calling Dumbledore."

"Harry-"

"No," Harry grinds his teeth. "We’re not kids, we can handle this ourselves. We can't go running to him every time something goes wrong. That's the whole point of living alone, 'mione."

Hermione rolls her eyes, "There's nothing childish about asking for help when you need it. In fact, there _is_ something incredibly childish about pretending you don’t need help when you do."

"I-" Harry begins, but his voice dies in his mouth and less than a second later both he and Hermione have jumped off the sofa and moved to the door, faster than any human could ever hope for.

They can smell him. He's coming closer.

Harry pinches his lips together. If he had any need for breathing, he would hold his breath now. A quick look at Hermione shows she's just as nervous. He's never come this close to them before.

And he's coming closer, he's walking towards them, slowly but steadily, and now he's close enough Harry assumes he would be able to hear them if they spoke. Harry's never been able to smell him as clearly as he does now, and it makes him slightly shaky. There is power in the vampire, a great power imbedded into his very blood. Harry has only ever smelled such a powerful vampire once, and that was his creator.

He puts his finger on Hermione's shoulder, and she nods, taking her position on the right side of the door while Harry takes the left. He closes his eyes, allowing his ears and nose to work without interruption from his eyes, to pick up the subtle clues the vampire is leaving for them.

A male, that's clear from this distance. He's moving lightly on his feet, like an acrobat would. Harry hears scratching on metal, he's running claws on the walls outside, scratching them up, leaving his mark on them. He's walking closer, he should be at their door in seconds. Any second now-

The door flies into the air, thrown with so much force a gust of wind pushes Harry to the ground. It lands on the sofa, crashing it onto the floor, as Harry raises, claws out, to attack. He tries to slash at the figure in front of him, but a hand comes up, quicker then his own, grabs him and heaves him into the air. Harry flies through the air like the door before him, twisting and turning so, like a cat, he lands on his hands and feet. He growls and looks up, just in time to see Hermione being pinned to the wall by a man who's turned away from him. Hermione's claws are out as well, and she's slashing at the man, pieces of clothing falling to the ground with fat beads of crimson blood. The smell of spilled vampire blood, always so much more powerful than any other scent, takes over the room, forcing Harry to shake his head to clear it.

He doesn't waste any more time, launching at the man from behind. He reaches out with a claw to slash his throat, but in the last second the man turns, taking Hermione with him, and Harry realizes in horror, just a moment too late, that he's about to claw his friend.

The flesh on the back of Hermione's neck parts, forcing her blood out of her body. It sprays Harry as the momentum of his jump takes him on the opposite direction she's flying in, and he lands on the ground, claws covered in Hermione's blood as she is thrown against the wall with enough force to make it crack.

Hermione lands on the ground and begins gasping, hands reaching out to stem the flow of blood. Horrified, Harry scrambles towards her, ignoring their attacker. He cradles Hermione's head in his lap, placing his hands firmly on the wound. Vampires may heal quickly, but pain is still pain and right now Hermione's must be horrific. The entire back of her neck has been cut right open, down to the bone. Her wind pipes are destroyed, so she can't even voice her anguish. Harry pushes through the blood to force her skin together. His hands are slick from the sticky liquid, but he forces his fingers to remain in place as Hermione's flesh reconnects and she lets out a shudder.

It's only when he's convinced that she's healing that Harry looks up at the intruder. He's standing above them, back against the wall, lazily watching them. So Harry watches him back.

Physically he appears to be around his early twenties, but of course that means absolutely nothing. Harry learned a long ago that the older a vampire gets, the more powerful he becomes. And judging by the power evident in this vampire's smell, he is quite old indeed. His form is a deception, as so many vampires' are. The vampire is quite attractive, with honey blond hair and strange eyes, one green and one a blue so light it almost looks white. He's tall, not particularly muscular but not weak looking either. His expression is…bored. He looks bored.

Harry's anger flares back up. Bored? He's _bored_? After causing Hermione such pain, after breaking into their home, after stalking them for days, he's bored by them?

He gets up, gently placing Hermione on the ground. She's still weak, after losing so much blood. They'll have to go out and feed again as soon as possible. _Fuck_.

The man tilts his head slightly as Harry gets up, and his body remains lax and calm, expecting no danger to him. He watches as Harry takes a step forward and then says, "Calm down, young man. I'm not here for you or the _fräulein_."

Harry grits his teeth and takes another step forward, but he's suddenly stopped by a tug on his pants. Looking down he sees Hermione has pushed herself into a seated position and has taken hold of his pants. She shakes his head at him, and he immediately takes a step back. He knows better than to ignore Hermione's advice.

"Smart girl," The man speaks in the strange mix-and-match of accents that identifies so many of the European vampires who travelled from country to country so often that their non-native tongues became a combination of all the places they've been. Harry can hear some British, some Eastern European influences, some French. The strongest accent within an accent he can make out is German. Maybe Austrian, but he doesn’t know the differences between the German speaking countries enough to be sure.

"What do you want?" Hermione asks, voice cracked from loss of blood and weakness.

The man takes a step forward, causing Harry to take an automatic step backwards, so he's in front of Hermione. The man's eyes flicker between Harry and Hermione and a slight spark of amusement enters his expression, "What a gentleman. I told you, I have no interest in harming your beautiful lady."

Harry grits his teeth as Hermione repeats, calmly, "What do you want, sir?"

"I'm looking for someone, and I was hoping you'd be able to help me in my endeavor," The vampire turns his eyes to Hermione and away from Harry as he answers. Harry doesn’t like him looking at Hermione. There's an interest in his eyes that Harry finds unnerving. He's looking at her a bit like Harry once saw a human look at a particularly beautiful racing horse.

"You're looking for our creator," Hermione grabs Harry's hand and uses him to pull herself up. He lets her lean on him as she finds her balance again. He's surprised how quickly she's healed- she lost a massive amount of blood. But if there's one thing Hermione is, it's resilient. "For Dumbledore."

"Yes, _fräulein_ ," The man flicks his gaze to Harry. "Any idea where he may be, young man?"

"Why would we tell you?" Harry asks with a growl. "You just attacked us."

"Technically, you attacked me and I defended myself," The vampire raises his hands in mock defense.

"Technically you stalked us and broke down our door," Harry growls.

The vampire raises an eyebrow and turns back to Hermione, "Do you know where Albus is?"

"Albus?" Harry frowns.

"Yes," The vampire doesn't look away from Hermione as he answers Harry's question. "That's his name. Albus. Albus Dumbledore."

Harry swallows.

"He didn’t tell you his first name, did he?" The man shakes his head. "He's very secretive, but I thought he'd have told his students. You did study under him in Hogwarts, didn’t you? Never mind, it's unimportant at the moment. Now, will you please tell me where he is?"

"No," Hermione says calmly.

"No?" The vampire raises an eyebrow. "Little girl, you're quite brave, I'm sure, but in case you have not realized this by now, I am far superior to you in terms of…well, everything, but brute strength seems the most relevant right now. If you don’t give me what I want-"

"You'll attack us, and force us to give it to you?" Hermione snorts. "We'll fight you, we'll fight you so fiercely you'll be forced to kill us. So, you'll prove the superior but you will not get what you want."

Harry tightens his grasp on Hermione as the man observes her with narrowed eyes, but he just smiles and says, "Smart girl, aren't you? Tell me what you want."

Hermione lets go of Harry and takes a step towards the vampire. Harry is forced to stifle the urge to step in front of her. Dumbledore once told him his protective instinct was beyond the roof. But Hermione doesn’t actually need his protection. It's just an instinctive reaction to seeing anyone in danger. Harry is one of those people who must run into flaming buildings even if he knows he may not come out.

"Let's start with your name," Hermione says. "Tell us what your name is."

"Grindelwald."

Harry and Hermione frown at each other. He can tell that she's also surprised he so easily answered her question.

"Anything else?"

Hermione clears her throat and says, "What do you want from Dumbeldore?"

"I need his help."

Harry frowns, "You need his help."

"Yes," Grindelwald's eyes flicker to him. "I need his help."

"What for?" Hermione asks.

"That's not really your business, young lady, is it?"

"It very much is if you're asking for our help," Hermione points out. "We're not going to contact Dumbledore for you unless we know what you want from him."

Grindelwald raises an eyebrow and then his face cracks into a grin, "I require his assistance with finding something. Something's that's proving quite difficult for me to find. Something that needs to be found or a lot of people will die. And don’t ask me who this person is, please, I will not answer. Well? Shall we go back to our fight or will you tell me where I can find your creator?"

Hermione hesitates, then nods, "We'll call him, then."

****

The ring of his phone forces Albus out of a rather pleasant day dream. He had been remembering his childhood, a particular day when he and his siblings had helped a nanny goat give birth. Their father had been away, forcing the three children to birth the kid themselves. It had been terrifying, at least for Albus. He had been so frightened that something would go wrong, that he animals would die because of some miscalculation of his. His brother had taken charge, forcefully shoving Albus out of the way and issuing orders in quick succession and sending their sister running as she got water and cloths from the house.

The animal had slipped out healthy and female, and Ariana had shrieked in excitement. That is the moment that Albus keeps returning to, over the years, the glee, the spontaneous hug he got from Aberforth, the pleased smile on his sister's face, the pride that they had, the three of them together, brought a living creature into the world. Albus doesn’t  think he had ever felt as close to his siblings as he had that day.

So he's displeased when the phone rings, snapping him out of the memory of Ariana's shrieks and Aberforth's crushing hug. But he sighs, resigned to a return to the present, and answers.

"Dumbledore here."

"Sir? It's Hermione."

Albus immediately sits up. He hasn’t heard from the two of them for about three months. That was the whole point of sending them off on their own, for them to learn to survive without his presence and guidance. They had decided on running the experiment for a full year, and Albus has no doubt that if Hermione is violating the terms, that something must have happened.

"What's wrong? Are you all right? Where's Harry?"

"I'm here, Professor Dumbledore," Dumbledore closes his eyes in relief at hearing Harry's voice.

"What’s wrong?" Because something is clearly wrong. He can hear it in their voices.

"It's…You know what, just talk to him," Harry snaps, and he doesn't sound like he's talking to Albus.

There's a soft laughter in the background that makes Albus tense up, because oh fuck _fuck_ he knows that laughter, and then a very familiar voice says, "Al."

"Grindelwald," Albus grits his teeth together. "What are you doing terrorizing my students?"

He speaks in German. It's an automatic reaction to hearing that voice. Had he ever spoken to the vampire in another language? Not that he can recall.

"And hello to you too, love," Gellert sounds mildly amused. "Why yes, I have been well, and I thank you for asking-"

" _Gellert_. What do you want?"

Gellert clicks his tongue and sighs, "I need your help."

Albus tenses further, "And why in the name of all the gods would I help you with anything?"

"Because my problem happens to be one that may involve you as well."

"Oh, gods," Albus closes his eyes. "What have you done now?"

"Your faith in me is touching, my lovely. I have done nothing. I had a vision."

That was never good. "What did you see?"

"A bloodfarm, and a green skull with a snake curling out of its mouth."

Fuck. Fuck. _Fuck_.

"And…you're sure it was a vision of the present, not the past?"

"Yes, Albus. I know the difference."

Albus groans.  "Leave the children, I'll come see you. Stay in New York."

"I'll await you with baited breath, my lov-"

Albus clicks the phone off.

****

He stands by the window, where he can see the alley leading to the apartment building. He's been standing there without moving for around twelve hours. Conveniently, the current inhabitants of the apartment are on vacation, so he didn’t need to kill them. Albus doesn’t like it when he kills humans. It's the cause of their current... disengagement from each other's lives. Gellert killed a girl he was feeding on, and Albus picked up and left.

There. Gellert grins as Al appears behind the corner. He's dressed in a grey suit and yellow tie (god, his sense of fashion is reprehensible), his hands are buried deep into his pockets and he's looking down at the ground as he walks. Gellert sniffs the air and sighs. He's missed that smell. Albus smells of airplanes and the New York subway and the streets he walked through, but under that is the scent of Albus's blood. Every living creature has a different smell that doesn't change throughout their lives, a smell that's deep down within them, beyond the scents of the world they accumulate over time. As far as Gellert is concerned, Albus's scent is the sweetest.

He knows that Al can smell him, of course. His body language doesn’t change, he doesn’t acknowledge he notices Gellert's presence at all. But he does, oh he certainly does. Gellert can tell just by the fact that Al slows down to a crawl, pushing off the moment where he finally enters the building.

Gellert considers leaving the window, but there's hardly a point. Albus will know he's been watching for him, so he stays in his place, waiting.

A few minutes later, the door nob turns slowly, and the door opens. Albus appears, walking into the apartment where they had lived together twenty years earlier.

"Have you looked for a while?" Gellert asks softly.

Albus raises an eyebrow and says, "I came straight here. But you already knew that."

Gellert smiles at his lover, "I like it when you know how to find me."

"It makes you feel special?" Albus sighs and sits down on the sofa. Hmm, Gellert tilts his head to follow the curve of Albus's legs. He's pleased today, as he often is, that Al only stopped aging at thirty-five. It's impossible to know when a pure-blood vampire will cease aging, and Gellert himself had done so at twenty-one, and he likes his own body- being young suits him, he thinks. But Albus looks much better as a mature, older man then he had as a teen and young adult.

"You always make me feel special, Al," Gellert purrs and takes a step forward, but Albus raises a hand to stop him.

"We have some things to discuss."

"What, no time for-"

"Grindelwald."

"Oof, _Grindelwald_. You must be really upset with me."

"Of course I'm upset with you," Albus growls. Oh, he's _growling_. Gellert's mood is quickly turning from pleased to ecstatic. How the hell had he let _five years_ go by without seeing him? "You threatened my students."

Gellert rolls his eyes, "Come one, she's just a mudblood, she's not a _student_. The boy, though, a halfblood. I understand."

"That makes no difference," Albus sighs, looking incredibly exasperated. "But I don’t want to get into a philosophical discussion with you right now."

Gellert has to agree. Philosophical discussions between the them always end in a fight, and fights usually end in violent hate sex, which Gellert admittedly enjoys quite a bit, but Albus always leaves after that type of interaction (one of the more annoying things about his lover is his tendency to remember his precious _moral compass_ whenever things get interesting) and Gellert really needs him to stay right now.

"I missed this place," Gellert looks around. "Though I'm not a fan of the changes the current residents made to the décor. They're on vacation, before you accuse me of ending their existence."

"Have you gone to the Ministry?" Albus asks. No small talk, then.

"The Ministry?" Gellert scoffs. "Fudge wouldn't listen. You know him, he'd rather stick his head in the sand."

Albus looks at him for a moment, beautiful blue eyes trained on Gellert, making his insides warm up. Albus's undivided attention always does that to him, makes him feel firmly rooted in place, like he's exactly where he's meant to be, which of course he is. He's always where he's supposed to be when he's with Al.

"Yes, that does sound like him."

"I've looked for them, but…" Gellert shrugs.

"You can't find them," Albus observes.

"I was hoping you could help me with that, love."

Albus sighs.

"Come on, Albus, you know Bellatrix and Lucius better than I do. I'm sure you've got some idea where they would be," Gellert leans forward and this time doesn’t stop. Albus sighs, but it's more in resignation than anything else, and his hands stay limp on his sides as Gellert climbs on his lap, straddling his hips. "Don’t you, love?"

He leans in to kiss Albus, slowly and deeply, reveling in the familiar taste and feel of him. Gellert wraps his hands around Albus's neck, pushing them closer to each other. He grins into Albus's mouth in victory as warm hands come up to his waist, curling around him. Gellert bites down on Albus's lip, drawing blood, which he quickly laps up. Vampire blood is not usually as tasty as human blood. Albus's is the exception as far as Gellert is concerned.

They're vampires, they don’t need to breath, they could go on for hours like this, locked into one another, aware of nothing but each other's bodies. Gellert wouldn’t mind that, but Albus pushes him away, and Gellert groans as the kiss is broken off.

"We should go to Godric's Hollow," Albus mumbles, and Gellert knows him well enough to know he's trying to clear his head. Gellert runs his hands through Al's hair, trying to make that as hard as possible.

"You think they'd go back there?" Gellert frowns. It seems a bit too obvious. Bellatrix may be out of her mind but she was not unintelligent. "After last time?"

"Last time was nearly seventy years ago," Albus points out, and catches the hand that had started descending to his crotch. " _Don’t_."

Gellert rolls his eyes, "Come on, Al. It's been five years since I fucked anyone."

"Then go fuck someone else," Albus says dryly. Gellert loves the way his lips shape around the profanity. "And get off my lap."

"I really don’t want to do that."

"Which one?"

"Both, love."

"Right," And that's all the warning Gellert gets before Albus abruptly stands up, and he's thrown to the floor, his enhanced reflexes the only thing stopping him from landing unceremoniously on his face. He manages to twirl in the air and land on his hands and feet, very much like Albus's boy did the night before.

"Alllll," Gellert purrs, moving on all fours towards Albus, who's gotten up and is walking towards the door. "Playing hard to get, are we? My favourite game."

"The Death Eaters haven't opened a bloodfarm in years. If they're starting again, their loyalty has been reinvigorated, they're back in full on believer mode. Whenever this happens, they always go back to the source. Every time. They'll be in Godric's Hollow," Albus says. Gellert nods.

"Very well, back to England it is."

****

Dumbledore call the apartment four nights later. Hermione, who's been expecting him, jumps up from the sofa (they've taken the door off it and put it back in place, though it's still wobbly- neither Harry nor Hermione had ever fixed a door before) and rushes to answer the phone.

"Hello, children," Dumbledore says calmly.  

"Did you meet him?" Harry asks, standing up from his chair, where he had been reading a book. Or, in Hermione's humble opinion, pretending to read. "That Grindelwald guy?"

Enhanced hearing is usual for many things. Dumbledore can hear Harry and responds, "Yes. I'm sorry I haven't called, I've been traveling. And I'm sorry he…bothered you. He won’t be doing that again."

" _Bothered_ us?" Harry shakes his head in clear bewilderment. "That's one way to put it. Who _is_ he, Dumbledore?"

"A very powerful, and very dangerous vampire," Dumbledore replies. "And not anything you need to concern yourselves with, I promise."

"But-" Hermione starts, but she's interrupted by Dumbledore.

"I need you to trust me. Do you?"

The answer comes naturally. She trusts her creator, "I do."

"Then trust me when I say that there is nothing you need to concern yourself with," Dumbledore says, and Hermione can feel Harry tense behind her. "You seem to have done quite well these past few months, I say we return to our little experiment. I'll see you in nine months, yes?"

"Wait-" Harry moves forward, but Dumbledore has already hung of the phone.

"Well," Harry snaps. "That was productive."

"Hmm."

"I can't believe he just…just…I don’t even know what to call it. But I hate it when does it."

"Brushed us off," Hermione suggests.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," Harry growls as he comes to stand besides her. "What the hell is he up to?"

"I don’t know," Hermione places her forehead against the glass, closing her eyes. The glass is hard against her over sensitive skin. It must be freezing cold so late at night, exposed to the October chill. It there's one thing she truly misses about being human (other than food and drink) it’s the ability to feel the cold and the heat. Vampires' inner body warmth remains in a perpetual slightly chilled condition, no matter what, and their flesh remains an icy chill even in the Sahara. She misses the feeling of warmth that a fire used to give her, the feeling of cool from being thrown in a pool. She never realized before how pleasurable it was to wrap your hands around a warm drink in the middle of the winter.

But this is her own private sorrow, not to be shared. Harry, who is in most things her one true confidant, has been a vampire from the moment of his conception and does not understand her yearning for things forever lost.

Sometimes Hermione wonders if her somewhat blind trust in her creator comes from that, from the fact that he has been the one to yank her from one life into another. The change had been so drastic, and he has been the one consistent, the one thing that remains from her old life, that she can not find it in herself to doubt him. Because, as illogical as it sounds, her reasoning appears to work somewhere along these lines: if Dumbledore is good, and he did this to her, then the transformation must have been good. But if Dumbledore isn’t good…

This was something Hermione knows Harry just cannot understand. For him, the change had barely been noticeable. As a halfblood vampire (one who had a vampire parent and a human one), Harry has always been a vampire, but did not stop aging naturally, as purebloods (purebloods being those born of two vampire parents) did, and had to be turned by a pureblood to stop his aging process. Dumbledore had been the pureblood to turn Harry three years earlier, a year after Hermione had been turned.

As though able to read her mind, and realizing she is in need of a distraction, Harry places a finger on Hermione's shoulder, drawing her out of her thoughts, and says, "I don't like it when he does that."

"Does what? Brushes us off? You've already said that."

"That too," Harry growls. "But I was thinking more of his tendency to treat us like children. Though I suppose it goes together, doesn’t it?"

Hermione sighs, "Have you ever heard of that name? Grindelwald?"

"No, I don’t think so," Harry replies. "But if you're curious, I know who we could ask."

Hermione groans, knowing exactly who Harry is referring to, "You want to go see Luna?"

"I _always_ want to go see Luna," Harry grins, looking ridiculously pleased by the idea. "There's very little that I find more enjoyable then going to see Luna. Come on, 'mione, it's not like we have anything better to do."

Hermione rolls her eyes, but sighs in resignation, "Fine, fine! We'll go see Loony Lovegood. But tomorrow night, I'm too tired for anything more tonight."


	2. The Uneven Wisdom of Luna Lovegood

_I hate you. I love you…. I think the madness started the moment we met and you shook my hand_

_-Shannon L. Alder_

Godric's Hollow has hardly changed since Albus had last been there, twenty years earlier. The same brown stone buildings line the same one long street, the same black lamps light the street in the same dim light. Even the people look the same, all of them sporting the same semi-bored semi-detached look on their faces, like there is nothing worth getting worked up over in the whole entire world. They smell the same, as well. All the humans in this place give out more or less the same scent- musty and unappealing.

They arrive in the small town in a black tinted car, protecting them from the worst of the sun's effects. The sunglasses help as well, but Albus is still feeling weak and dizzy from the effects of the sun. For a vampire, being ten minutes out in the sun had the effect that five hours out in the desert with no water or hat would have on a human.

They have to stay in the car for a few hours before the sun comes down. Gellert, who's been driving, brings the car to a stop on the side of the main street. Albus leans his head on the leather seat. He watches with narrowed eyes as Gellert studies him in the rearview mirror.

"What is it?" Albus asks with a frown.

"What?" Gellert bats his eyelashes in faux innocence. He knows how to use his youthful appearance well enough.

"You're staring," Albus explains dryly. "I know that look. I distrust that look."

Gellert shrugs, perfectly sculpted shoulders going up and down. This might be easier if he were less attractive. Or at the very least less aware of his own attractiveness and how to use it.

"Probably wise, love," Gellert turns around in the seat, so those eyes are glaring right into Albus's. He's so amused, clearly enjoying himself quite a bit. "I was thinking-"

"I don't want to know," Albus has so suppress a childish urge to put his hands over his ears. He really doesn't want to hear what Gellert has to say so long as he's got that smile on his face.

"That we've been travelling together for days now," Gellert continues, relentless. "And you're looking quite stressed, darling. So, I was thinking, since we have some time on our hands-"

"Gods up above," Albus growls. "Do you have anything other then sex on your mind?"

"Of course I do, love," Gellert's amused spark disappears. "But you know, I _have_ missed you dreadfully."

He's grown serious again, and Albus shakes his head in exasperation. Gellert catches the movement and smiles softly, "And you missed me as well, haven't you?"

Albus shrugs, seeing no point in pretending otherwise. He does, however, feel the need to say, "Once we bring in the Death Eaters, we'll go our separate ways."

Gellert's eyes grow hard, his whole body stiffening up, "We don't have to. You can come back to Nurmengard with me."

"No, I can’t," Albus says calmly. "And don’t ask me why, you know why. There's no point in repeating this discussion again."

Gellert scoffs, "You'd rather go bury your head in the sand like those idiots in the Ministry. Can't you see-"

_The world is changing and we must change with it._

"The world is changing, and if we don’t change with it, we will be destroyed by it."

Close enough.

"Gellert-"

"Humans are getting more and more advanced, for the first time in our history they may actually pose a serious threat to us."

"Yes, which is what the International Statute of Secrecy is for," Gods above, why is he allowing himself to be drawn into this discussion again? No good has ever come of indulging Gellert's need for confrontation. And why is he doing this now, when they have a job to do?

The answer comes to Albus as soon as the question forms in his mind. Because they have a job to do and so are stuck together for the next few hours.

Gellert snorts, "The Stature of Secrecy? That's from a different time, a time when humans _wanted_ things to remain in the shadows. A time when they were happy to accept that there were some things best not confronted, things they were only too happy to ignore when they could. But now…they've developed an unhealthy amount of curiosity. They don't allow things that are hidden to remain so. They're no longer as afraid of the dark as they once were. And the unknown has become something to be explored. They've gone to the _moon_."

Albus smiles, "I know. Aren't they magnificent?"

"Magnificent?" Gellert rolls his eyes. "They're _food_."

"Deer are food for the lion, does it make them any less magnificent?"

"If you ask the lion, I think he would say yes."

"But Gellert," Albus sighs, "We're somewhat more advanced then lions, don’t you think?"

Gellert shakes his head, "We're predators just like the lions. That's more important than any advantage we may have over the lions."

"I think," Albus says, deciding to try a different tactic, "that if you actually took the time to see human culture you would realize it has quite a lot to offer."

His eyes are cold, "I've seen what humans have to offer. We saw it together, thirty years ago, remember?"

Of course he did. He remembered dead eyes staring from a living woman, a pile of shoes so large his eyes get lost in it, the barbed wire, the overwhelming smell of death, the screams of the guard as Albus slowly broke bone after bone in his body, keeping him alive in an agonized existence, for days. How good it had felt at the moment, how hallow the gesture had appeared afterwards.

"I remember. But that's…that's not everything humans have to offer."

"No, of course not," Gellert says dryly. "There's quite a lot else they have to offer. I noticed that your mudblood girl-" Albus grinds his teeth together- "Is quite…dark skinned. I wonder what she'd say about the _cultural contributions_ made in her country."

It's Albus's turn to snort, incredulous, "I don’t really think you can use that as an example, given the fact that you're advocating the exact same thing for our world."

"Come now, Al, that's a false equivalency. There is no real difference between humans, it's just nonsense they tell each other to make themselves feel better. But with us, there _is_."

"The inability to create other vampires does not make human born vampires lesser beings," Albus says, and as Gellert opens his mouth to answer he quickly adds, "And neither does their inability to practice blood-magic, before you say anything."

The other vampire rolls his eyes, as though Albus is being purposely ridiculous, or rather, childish. But he doesn’t reply, and in fact slips back into the front seat and avoids looking Albus in the mirror, clearly interested in avoiding a full-on fight in the car.

Albus is more then happy to oblige him.

****

Harry has no idea where Luna lives or if she even has a place of her own. Knowing her, it's perfectly reasonable to assume that she doesn’t have one, and simply moves from place to place, allowing herself to make her way to random location after random location.

But he does know where to find her every night at exactly midnight, and that's in Central Park, feeding thestrals.

What Luna sees in those strange winged creatures, visible only to vampires (technically only to vampires who've seen death, but who ever heard of a vampire who _hasn't_ seen death?) is beyond Harry. To him they seem quite ugly and honestly a bit creepy, but trying to understand Luna's strange likes is a futile effort and Harry learned long ago to just take Luna as she is.

It's a lesson Hermione has yet to learn. She grabs Harry's arm as they approach and says with a frown, "Do we have to go talk to her?"

"You want to know who this Grindelwald is, don’t you?"

"Yes, but-"

"Luna is the oldest vampire in New York, she's known Dumbledore for hundreds of years. If anyone knows who this vampire is it will be her. Come on, Hermione," Harry grins, "Luna's wonderful."

Hermione rolls his eyes, "She's mad."

Harry doesn’t respond to that, expect with a small smile and they walk into the park, finding Luna standing next to a fountain, feeding a baby thestral apples from her bag. The creature's mother is standing nearby, munching on a large piece of raw bloody meat, and looks up when Harry and Hermione approach. Luna does the same, and smiles.

"Hello, Harry, Hermione," Luna says in that sing-song dreamy voice of hers that's so unlike anything Harry has ever heard. "How are you?"

"We're all right, Luna," Harry comes over to stand beside her, watching the creature in front of them wait for more food. "You?"

"Oh, I'm doing fine," Luna throws another apple into the air, and the thestral catches it easily. "I do believe I was attacked by a Wrackspurt earlier, my mind is feeling quite dizzy."

"Maybe that's because you haven’t fed in a few days," Hermione mumbles behind them. "I can smell it on you, you're hungry."

"Oh, but I can't feed tonight," Luna says, not turning to Hermione. "It's a full moon. It's bad luck to feed on a full moon. Might annoy the werewolves."

"What?" Hermione sputters. "What kind of-where did you get that- werewolves don't _care_ when vampires feed!"

Luna gives Hermione one dreamy look before saying, "It's their time, not ours."

"What? That's the stu-"

"Hermione," Harry warns, before turning to Luna and saying, "I wanted to ask you something, Luna."

"I know."

Harry blinks, "You do?"

"Well, you see, you only ever come to see me when you have something to ask," Luna replies airily.

"Oh," Harry suddenly feels quite ashamed of himself. Luna has that affect on people. "Sorry."

"It's quite all right, I enjoy your visits."

"All right, then…"

"What is it you wanted to ask, Harry?"

"Right. I was wondering if you knew who Grindelwald is?"

Luna looks at Harry with a slight frown on her brow, "You met Grindelwald?"

"Yes," Harry shifts from one leg to the other. "You know him?"

"Oh, yes," Luna nods. "I know him quite well. I was in the Order of the Phoenix with him."

"The Order of the Phoenix?" Hermione rushes forward, eyes wide. "That's the group that fought the Dark Lord, isn't it?"

"Yes, we fought Voldemort."

"What?" Harry gapes. "You were in the Order?"

"Oh, yes, but that was a long time ago. And Grindelwald was there also, but I never liked him. He believes in bad things, you know," Luna shakes her head.

"Like what?" Harry's curious now.

"He believes that human-born vampires should serve purebloods, that they belong to their pureblood creators," Luna says the words causally as she pets the thestral lightly on the head, a smile on her face. "That's not a very nice thing to think."

"No…" Harry mumbles. "But isn’t that what Voldemort thought, also?"

"No, Harry," Hermione sighs, in that tone that means she thinks Harry is an uncultured disgrace. "Voldemort believed that human-born vampires shouldn’t exist, that they should all be killed and no more should be created."

"And that halfbloods should be servants to purebloods," Luna nods. "Which is funny, really, because _his_ father as a human, but he didn’t tell a lot of people that."

"Self-hate, I suppose," Harry shrugs.

"That's sad," Luna sighs. "Don't you think?"

"Maybe a bit," Harry shrugs, though he's finding it a little difficult to muster up sympathy for Voldemort. Voldemort was the bogyman vampire parents used to scare their children at night. His war with the Ministry of European Vampires had ended so many vampire lives that that time was considered as deadly to the vampire population as the Black Plague had been for the human one.

"Grindelwald didn’t think so, either," Luna says, though Harry's pretty sure he hadn't said he disagreed with her. "He said it was pathetic. Why did you want to know about Grindelwald?"

The abrupt shift in conversation doesn’t surprise Harry- it's another one of those Luna-quirks.

"We met him a few days ago, and Dumbledore has gone with him," Harry explains.

"Has he?" Luna smiles as the adult thestral comes up to her and caresses it's neck. "That must mean the Death Eaters are trying to free Voldemort again."

"What? Wait, stop," Hermione raises a hand. "What are you talking about?"

"Which part?"

"Both-all!" Hermione shakes her head. "The Death Eaters are all in Azkaban."

"No, just the ones who were caught after the war," Luna replies. "We couldn’t find all of them, they show up once in a while. Some run away from Azkaban, also."

"No one's ever escaped from Azkaban, Luna," Hermione says slowly, like she's talking to a child.

"Oh, no, that’s just what the Ministry wants you to think," Luna replies calmly, and Harry's not sure if he should believe her or not. If yes, that's a rather terrifying notion.

"But Voldemort is dead, Luna!" Hermione has clearly moved on to the next problem in Lunas statement.

Luna sighs contently as the thestral nuzzles up to her, "He's not dead, the Ministry didn’t want to kill him, in case they ever need him. You know, because other than Grindelwald and Dumbledore, he's the strongest vampire alive."

She turns to Harry and says, "I think it's because they drink Crumple-Horned Snorkack blood."

"There's no such thing as- never mind, never mind!" Hermione waves her hands.

"Luna," Harry says quietly, "he's really alive?"

"Yes, but asleep," Luna nods. "He's asleep and trapped and can't be woken up."

"He was put in a trance?"

"It was very hard," Luna shakes her head. "A lot of vampires died when they put him in the trance, he fought them. Albus had to help, and he nearly died as well."

"And where is he now?"

"They put him to sleep and then hid him away," Luna shrugs. "I don’t know where, but I suspect Atlantis."

"There's no such thin-"

"Hermione," Harry rolls his eyes at her, and she just grunts and turns away.

"You know, Harry, if the Death Eaters are trying to free Voldemort again, they'll need bloodfarms," Luna says sagely. "So, if you want to find Grindelwald, you should probably go to the bloodfarm they opened in Anniston."

"Luna- wait. There's a bloodfarm in Anniston? Anniston, Alabama? Are you sure? Did you tell the Ministry?"

"I tried, but they wouldn’t listen," Luna sighs. "They rarely listen to me. Maybe I should have told Albus instead, but I thought he was busy. There's a new one, opened in Anniston. The thestrals told me."

"Thestrals don’t speak, Luna," Harry points out.

"Of course not," Luna smiles at the little thestral and caresses his nose. "But we should still listen to them."

****

"Let's go," Al says quietly. "The sun is down."

Gellert hums his agreement, tapping the wheel with his gloved fingers. The sun is down, the streets are dark, illuminated only by the cold light of the full moon, and the time has come to attack.

Albus goes out first, wrenching the door open and slipping out. Gellert follows suit, and they walk through the quiet street. He can hear the sounds of human lives inside the buildings. How dull, they all are. They smell boring. How is it that they all smell the same, despite being different people? He wonders if Al noticed this as well, that they all smell exactly the same as they had twenty years ago.

He glances at Albus, wanting to ask him, but then Albus stops and says, "They're not here."

"How do you know? we haven’t got to-"

"If they were here they'd attack by now."

"They could be lying in wait."

"Bella doesn’t do lying in wait," Albus replies. "If she were here, she'd attack. There's something wrong. I missed something…"

Gellert begins to reply, but the words die in his mouth as a new smell engulfs him and he swears in German.

"Garlic," Albus sighs deeply. "Gods, I hate garlic."

Gellert has to agree. Garlic has one of the more annoying effects on vampires, rendering their sense of smell useless, blocking out all other scents around it.

"If they've put up garlic, they must have something to hide," Gellert mumbles, but Albus just looks at his sideways.

They follow the smell of garlic past the main street and into a small alleyway. They follow the alley to a large, ugly manor house where one Tom Riddle Senior had been born and raised. It had long since been abandoned, but had become something of a shrine for his son's followers, and about two hundred years previously they had built a bloodfarm in the basement. Albus was right to assume they would reopen it. One thing the Death Eaters tended to be was sentimental, and there was no place that evoked more sentimentality in them then Godric's Hollow.

"Right," Gellert sighs deeply. "Ready?"

In leu of an answer, Albus strides forward and kicks down the front door of the Riddle House before stomping in.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Gellert says with a raised eyebrow and follows Al.

They walk through the abandoned mansion, the smell of garlic growing stronger and stronger. Albus stops by the bedroom that had once been Tom Senior's and glances in. The man's blood still stains the wall where it had dried all those years ago. Albus heaves a sigh and closes the door. Gellert follows him down to the pantry and move the cupboard hiding the secret door. The door is covered in garlic, pinned to the door by nails. Gellert sniffs in disgust, and Albus reaches out to open the door.

A gush of wind greets them as the door swings open. Gellert walks in first, stepping past Albus into the bloodfarm. It's entirely empty.

It's a large area, a long hallway with stone walls and a circular ceiling. There are about fifty wooden cots, all lined up against the walls, separated from one another by silk hangings. Each of the cots have shackles chained to the walls, and the cots are bolted to the floor.

There is dried blood on the floor, and some unused blood bags on cots. The dried blood is incredibly old. No one has used this bloodfarm for years. Gellert flicks his eyes to Albus, who's staring at the empty space with a frown.

"It appears you were wrong, Al," Gellert clicks his tongue, somewhat annoyed. They wasted all this time coming to Godric's Hollow, and there was nothing here. "They didn’t return here."

"No," Albus replies, quietly. "I was not wrong."

Gellert frowns, "What do you mean?"

"I told you that if the Death Eaters started working again they'd start in Godric's, and I was right."

"Well, love, if you haven't noticed-"

"It's not the Death Eaters," Albus snaps. "Not on their own."

He turns to look at Gellert and adds, "They're working with someone else. Someone new. They've been recruiting again."

****

_She knows she's growing insane. As she lays in the cot, fingers reaching out to the sun, she can see her mother's hands reaching for her, caressing her, trying to warm her up. But she's too cold, her mother's phantom touch can't help her._

_Someone starts crying. She recognizes the crying. It's coming from a boy they brought in some time ago. She doesn't know how long ago, she doesn’t have any concept of time left. She saw the boy as they carried him in. He was crying then, as well. He's no older then seventeen, with brown hair and frightened blue eyes. He looked at her when they brought him in, and she tried to smile at him, but she couldn’t work out the energy to do so. But the boy had stopped his crying and screaming, so maybe she managed to comfort him anyway. Maybe he could tell she was trying._

_Now he's crying again. He does it once in a while. She allows the sound to wash over her, trying to pretend it's just a crying baby, that she's home, that it's just the crying of the children from the family she worked for as a nanny. She wonders, idly, if the family found a new nanny yet. She quit, right before she was taken, deciding to travel for some time. She said goodbye to the children, but she wonders now if it was wrong, if she should have stayed with the family. She wonders if this is her punishment. The children had been heartbroken when she left. If she going mad, just to be thinking that?_

_The crying stops, so suddenly it causes her to stiffen. She looks up and sees one of_ them _is carrying a body like a ragdoll. Blue eyes and brown hair. They must have grown tired of his screams._

****

"I'm not going to Alabama," Hemione declares fiercely. "I am _not_ going back to Alabama."

"I wasn't going to ask you to," Harry replies quietly. He's looking at her with concern, and though she knows it's not fair, she hates him for it. A cold, bitter sense of jealously is seeping through her, one she knows well and despises. She hates feeling jealous of him, it makes her feel weak and worthless, like he's the superior one and she's just scavenging for bits of recognition. It's not fair, it's never been fair, and it's made so much worse by his kind understanding. She hates it, she hates _him_ , but then again she doesn’t really. "I'll go."

"You're going to go to Alabama because of the ramblings of a madwoman?" She's being cruel, she knows it, but it's either lash out or start crying. Why, why did it have to be Alabama? She'd had followed Harry to Hell and back, to the deepest dungeon and the coldest pit. But to Alabama?

She won’t. She _can’t_.

"Luna's not mad," Harry replies. "She's just…different."

"That's one way to look at it," Hermione mumbles.

"That's how I chose to look at it," Harry says coldly, but when Hermione flinches his expression turns soft and he adds, gently, "I'll only be gone for a few days. If it's nothing, then it's nothing."

"But if it's something?"

"Then I'll inform the Ministry, and they'll take care of it, and when Dumbledore gets back we'll be able to brag that we stopped a bloodfarm."

Hermione snorts, but she can't help but smile at Harry's false bravado as he sticks his chest forwards and gives Hermione what she assumes is meant to be a look of self-assurance.

"You know, Harry, there's a chance- quite a large change, actually- that this whole thing is in Luna's mind, that Voldemort's dead and all the Death Eaters are in Azkaban and Luna was just raving."

"I know," Harry says with a shrug. "But you know, the thing about Luna is, when she hits the mark, she _really_ hits the mark."

Hermione frowns, a bit confused, "Meaning…?"

"Meaning that if she's right about one thing she's probably right about them all. So if Voldemort really is still alive then it's probably also true that the Death Eaters are trying to free him. That's not something I'm willing to leave to chance. I have to make sure."

"I know," Hermione nods. "You're right."

"But?" Harry prompts.

"It’s only…Since you joined us, we haven't been apart for more then a few hours at a time, have we? It's strange to think of you being so far away," Hermione frowns, looking at the full moon blinking back at her. "While I stay here."

The full moon. They can see it so clearly from the rooftop they're sitting on. Hermione thinks again about what Luna had said, about it being bad luck to feed on a full moon. It occurs to her that Luna didn’t actually say that it bothered the _werewolves_ if vampires feed, just that it would bring said vampires' bad luck. Hermione understands what Luna meant, or at least she thinks she does. There is something worthwhile in respecting people's places in the world, giving them their space. Full moons are for werewolves. When they turn, they shouldn't have to spare a thought to the feedings of vampires. They should feel, just for the night, that their families and friends are not in danger of becoming some creature's dinner.

Hermione never heard a vampire talk like that. She likes it. It suits the values her own family taught her. She can imagine her grandmother saying something similar.

"It might be good," Harry says, forcing Hermione out of the rather pleasant memory of her grandmother's hand running through her hair. "Don’t want to grow too codependent, do we?"

Hermione snorts at that, "Oh, don’t worry. I can survive just fine without you."

"Yes, but what about me?" Harry asks, dramatic. "How am I to survive without my brilliant, beautiful, one of a kind-"

"All right, stop! Stop!" Hermione puts a hand on Harry's mouth to stop him. She's fighting hard to keep herself from bursting out in laughter. "We’ll be all right, both of us."

"Of course," Harry replies once Hermione removes her hand. "You're far to strong to be taken down by something as trivial as my absence."

Hermione grins at that.

****

"Alabama? You want me to go to Alabama with you."

"Yes," Harry says cheerfully. It's around two in the morning, and he's left Hermione a few hours earlier. He had decided it would be better not to travel to Alabama by himself, and there was only one other vampire in NYC he trusts enough to ask for such a favour. "What do you say?"

"What do I- bloody hell, Harry," Ron grumbles. "You're going to go all the way to Alabama because of something Loony said? Blimey Harry, I'd thought you'd know by now-"

"Yes, yes," Ron's opinion of Luna is even lower then Hermione's. "Will you come?"

Ron groans, "Oh, bloody hell! Yes, I'll come, I'll come."

Blood, blimey. Harry always found Ron's British slang quite hilarious.

"Great," Harry jumps up and rubs his hands together. "We'll leave tomorrow night."

"Mate," Ron rolls his eyes. "You're far to excited for your own good. You know where we're going, yes?"

"Alabama," Harry replies. "I've been there."

"That's not what I mean. I mean bloodfarms, have you ever seen one of those?"

"No."

"D'you know how bloody awful these places are? I doubt you do-"

"Ron," Harry blinks up at his friend. He's pacing the dark alleyway they're in, back and forth, back and forth. He's nervous. Surely it can't be from the prospect of going to a bloodfarm, can it?

"Ron, what is it?"

"I-" Ron groans and turns away. "It's nothing. Really."

"Ron…" Harry shakes his head. "Just tell me. Maybe I can help."

Ron shakes his head, "I told you, Harry, there's nothing."

"Oh, come on, Ron," Harry grunts and grabs Ron's hand, forcing him to a stop. "I know you better then that. Just tell me."

Ron sighs and detaches himself from Harry's grip, "It's…it's about my sister."

"You have a sister?" Harry is surprised. "I didn't know. I thought you only had brothers."

"I…listen, you can't tell anyone about Ginny, yah?"

"Not a soul," Harry promises.

"My sister…she's a squib."

Harry's eyes widened. Squibs were incredibly rare. "A squib?"

"Yeah, she's…she's twenty now," Ron shakes his head. "Bloody hell, bloody hell-"

" _Bloody hell_ , what?"

Ron wipes his eyes, "Ginny's missing."

"Missing?" Harry frowns. "How do you mean?"

"I mean missing, gone. She told us she was going on a trip, but we haven’t heard from her in a few weeks. We contacted the human police, of course, but they were bloody useless."

"Maybe you should contact the Ministry," Harry suggests. "They could send Aurors after her."

Ron snorts, "The Ministry doesn’t care what happens to a _squib_. When Ginny was born d'you know what they told us? That we should _drown_ her. That's what they used to do to squibs." Ron spits onto the ground. "Fucking Ministry."

Harry remains silent, unsure of what to say to that. It doesn't seem he needs to say anything as Ron continues, "I'll come with you to Alabama, mate-"

"And then I'll help you find Ginny," Harry interrupts. "Dumbledore will help to, I'm sure. All right?"

"Thanks, Harry."

****

The full moon blinks down at Hermione as she makes her way through the park. She keeps her head down, her black curls jumping around her. The Park is relatively quiet this time of night, maybe because most people are too drunk and high to say anything. Some Flower Children smile at her from their lounge on the grass. They say something about love and peace but Hermione just gives them a halfhearted grin and moves on.

Luna is still in the same spot she occupied a few hours earlier. The baby thestral is gone, and instead three adult ones walk around slowly, coming up to Luna every few moments to nudge against her affectionally.

Hermione clears her throat as she approaches, and Luna looks up with that dreamy look in her eyes. It suddenly occurs to Hermione that she looks a bit like the hippies. Are vampires even effected by marijuana? An interesting question to explore on another time.

"Hermione, hello," Luna smiles.

"Luna," Hermione smiles, feeling very slightly nervous. "I'm…I'm sorry to bother you again."

"Oh, it's all right," Luna replies. "You look like you're very nervous. Is it because you feel you were not very polite to me when you and Harry came to see me earlier?"

"I-yes, it is."

"Don’t worry, I'm used to people talking about me like that," Luna shrugs. "It doesn’t bother me anymore."

"It doesn’t?" Hermione frowns. It would have bothered her very much if people talked about her the way they talked about Luna.

"If I spent my time worrying about what people thought about me, I wouldn’t have much time for my own thoughts," Luna explains. And Hermione is shocked to discover she more or less understands what Luna's trying to say.

"But I still want to apoli-"

"Hush," Luna raises a finger to her lips and tilts her head slightly. "Do you smell that?"

Hermione did.

There was another vampire coming towards them. One she did not recognize.


	3. Dead Man's Blood

_There’s no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged_

_-Charlaine Harris_

When the blond, lean vampire jumps out of the shadows, claws out, and tries to hit Luna with them, she just moves out of the way with a speed Hermione had never seen before. She watches in shock as the attacker smashes into the fountain, breaking it into a thousand little pieces. She moves forward to join the fight, but she smells something behind her- more vampires.

Hermione turns around a moment to late, just in time to see an older looking female vampire hit her hard in the chest. A spasm of pain wrecks her chest, and she's thrown backwards onto the ground, her mind informing her rather calmly that she's had three bones broken. Hermione tries to get up from the grass, but she hears a _wooshing_ sound above her and a heavy body lands on her legs, breaking them. Hermione screams out in pain, she can't help herself, but that doesn’t stop her from clenching her hand into a fist and swinging up.

Her fist hits a jaw, squarely, and there's a groan as the weight is shifted off her. She immediately rolls herself on top of the body on the ground, using her arms in leu of working legs.

It's a blond woman, with a black strip in her hair. She's quite beautiful, in a mature, older sort of way. Hermione takes this in as she punches down again, breaking the vampire's nose. Her enemy gasps underneath Hermione and grabs at her. Hermione strikes the vampire's arm before she can reach her, but she suddenly feels a strange weakness in her arm.

She looks down and sees a needle in the vampire's hand. Hermione frowns at it.

The weakness begins to spread, to her chest and down to her stomach. She gasps and falls backwards, unable to move. Precisely a moment too late, her broken bones repair themselves.

"Dead Man's Blood," Hermione hears a calm voice say. She groans. Dead Man's Blood- blood taken from the body of a dead human. Really quite self-explanatory. Poison for vampires. A paralyzer. It would take days to wash out of her system.

Hermione tires to force her body to move, but it's not use. The woman leans over her and grabs her arm, and Hermione is suddenly dragged through the park, her body bouncing on the ground, accumulating small injuries that heal instantly. Her face becomes numb as well as she's pulled through, so she can't scream out to Luna for help. She's entirely helpless as she's roughly forced into the trunk of the car and is put in the dark.

The car drives for a while, but Hermione can't see anything, and the only thing she can hear is the rumbling of the car. Her mind is reeling. What is happening? Who would attack her, or were they after Luna? It seemed to her that if anyone was truly after her, it would definitely be because of Dumbledore, and that might mean there's a chance that Luna's ideas weren't entirely mad.

She doesn't like the thought of being a captive of Death Eaters.

The car stops and a few moments later the trunk is opened and the vampire woman looks down at her. She's sneering at her a rather impressive amount of distain.

"Filthy little mudblood," A voice sneers. A second vampire comes into view. A man, also blond, physically similar to the woman, but younger looking. He appears to have stopped aging around his mid-twenties, and is good looking in a cold and detached sort of way. "Let's kill her, Mother."

"No," The woman says calmly, placing a hand on her son's shoulder. "We need her alive, Draco."

"Why?" The man scoffs.

"Because, you allowed Lovegood to escape," The woman shakes her head. "I knew you were not ready for that. I should have been the one to take her on-"

" _You_ lost the last time you fought Lovegood, Mother," The boy folds his arms, like a spoiled child.

"Draco-" The woman puts her finger up in warning. "Get the girl into the house."

"What?" Draco snaps. "I don't want to touch her, she's filthy!"

 _Filthy_. The word rings through Hermione's mind. _Filthy, filthy_. She's been called that before, but not since she was turned. It makes her want to puke. Will she never be safe from those words?

"Just take her in, Draco," The woman rolls her eyes. "You can wash your hands later."

Even if she was not paralyzed, Hermione is not sure she could have moved.

****

"There," Gellert says, pointing from his position in the passenger's seat to a motel sign. "Let's stop there."

Albus nods and moves to park the car. Gellert jumps out as soon as they come to a stop and leans over the window to say, "I'll go get us a room. You can wait in the car."

Albus frowns, immediately suspicious, "Or we can go together."

Gellert rolls his eyes, but moves over to Albus's door and opens it with flourish, "After you, my love."

"Hmm," Albus exits the car and sticks his hands deep into the pockets of his long coat. He follows Gellert into the office, and is immediately assaulted by far too much bright light. What is it with humans, why can't they just let things stay in the dark?

"Good morning," The man behind the counter says primly. He looks incredibly exhausted and incredibly bored.

"Is it?" Gellert replies in English, raising an eyebrow. Albus is not used to hearing Gellert speak in that language. It's always odd for him, like it's someone else speaking. "I think it may be the middle of the night."

"It's one, sir," The man yawns.

"Twelve forty nine, to be exact. Meaning it's still-"

"Gellert," Albus sighs, and turns to the man behind the counter, who's blinking in confusion, clearly to tired to try and understand what Gellert is saying to him. "Do you have any rooms vacant?"

"O-oh, yeah…" The man nods, and looks at his books. "Um…but there are only rooms with one bed left."

"I'm sorry?" Albus feels very much like hitting someone, very hard. He wonders idly what his students would think if they knew how often he contemplated using violence.

"Just three rooms left, sir, and they all have one queen-sized bed. Um…do you want one of the rooms?"

"Yes," Gellert says cheerfully. "We'll take one of the rooms."

"Take room number 4, then," The man hands Gellert a key, which he takes quickly and pockets. Albus rolls his eyes discreetly and follows suit.

"I'm not sleeping in the same bed as you," Albus warns as they make their way back to the car. This time Gellert sits in the driver's seat. "Did you hear me?"

"I heard, lovely," Gellert murmurs as he parks the car next to number 4. "I'll take the couch."

"Will you?" Albus slips out the car with a sigh. They enter the musty little room and Albus sits down on the small sofa chair. It's itchy.

Gellert closes the door behind them and leans against it, one eyebrow raised, "You have no faith in me, do you?"

"That's-" Albus frowns, leaning backwards on the chair. "That's not exactly true. I have faith in you in the areas where you deserve to be trusted."

"And what you're telling me is that you don’t think I deserve to be trusted in keeping my hands off your-"

" _Gellert_ ," Why does he always do that? Why does he enjoy playing games, making everything more complicated, more difficult then it has to be? Why can't he ever leave well enough alone?

"Are you still teaching?"

The change of subject is so strange, so shocking, that Albus finds himself speechless for a moment. Gellert clearly enjoys that, as he looks at him with a slight smile on his face.

"I…yes," Albus finally croaks out. "Not in Hogwarts anymore. In human schools."

"Is that where you met your girl?"

Albus frowns, but nods, "I was teaching in Birmingham, that's where I met Hermione. She was such a smart girl, with ambitions that she could not satisfy in the world she was living in."

"A black girl in Alabama. Yes, probably quite a lot she can't do."

"A half-black girl, in Alabama," Albus corrects him. "Her mother worked as a maid in the home of her father's grandparents."

"She was the product of an affair?" Gellert asks but then shakes his head. "No. _Affair_ would not be the word for it, would it?"

"I won’t use that word, no," Albus agrees dryly. "Hermione's mother married when Hermione was two. Her step-father was a good man, but having more children in the house left Hermione without a clear place in the household. She was lost, a reminder of the worse time in her mother's life. And she looked different from the rest of her family."

"So, you took her away from everything," Gellert settles on the bed. "Took her away from the world she belonged in and thrusted her into one she has no part in."

"Who says she has no part in our world?" Albus frowns. "I made her into one of us, she's part of our world now."

Gellert shrugs, "She was not born into this, I don’t believe she will ever truly belong. It was a cruel thing to do to her, turn her into a lesser creature. All humans are equal, Al. But not all vampires are."

"Not all humans are equal," Albus argues. "Not in the way they're treated, not in the chances they have. Men are above women, whites are above blacks. Rich are above the poor. There is no equality among humans, there is no equality anywhere in this world."

"I'd agree with that," Gellert shrugs. "But I didn’t think you were as cynical as I am."

"Perhaps you're rubbing off me," Albus says dryly. Gellert gives him a small smile. "But unlike you, I don’t consider that to be the ideal state of the world. Unlike you, I still have hope that we can chance it."

"That's it," Gellert nods. "That's the difference between you and I. You still live with delusional hope."

"And you," Albus rubs his face. "You never had any hop-"

He stops talking when soft hands come to grasp his, moving them away from his face, and Gellert says calmly, "I do have hopes. Just not the kind you have."

"What hopes do you have?" Albus finds himself asking.

"I hope…" Gellert seems to think for a moment, "I hope for a world where we can survive, I hope for a world that has a semblance of order. And I hope for you to be by my side when we create that world."

He gently raises Albus's hand and kisses the inside of his wrist. The touch sends a shiver through Albus's flesh and he says, without really thinking, "Sometimes I wish you'd sleep with someone else. I think that would help me break free of you."

Gellert looks up at him, eyes searching, "I find it amusing, how selfish you can truly be. You think of me as a terrorist, a horrific man with abhorrent ideals, but that does not stop you from returning to me, time after time, and that does not stop you from loving me, does it? But if I fucked someone other than you, that would free you."

He's right, of course. There is no two ways around it, Albus is a horribly selfish man. He wonders if knowing it makes him a better or worse person.

"Yes, it would," Albus says sadly. "It would free me. Would you do that, for me?"

"Free you from my love? No, I don’t think I can do that," Gellert brushes his lips over Albus's fingers. "If I don’t have you, I have no one."

Somehow, after all this time, that still breaks Albus's heart, and he grows limp as Gellert gently pulls him up from the chair and leads him to the bed, placing him on top the covers and laying him down. Albus sighs deeply as Gellert climbs on top of him, but the blond vampire simply straddles his hips and looks down at him, seemingly uninterested in doing anything at the moment. Albus tries very hard not to be disappointed.

Or at least, not _too_ disappointed.

"I'll make you a deal, love. If I ever meet anyone I have as interesting a conversation with as you, I will sleep with them."

Albus snorts.

"Unlikely, isn’t it?" Gellert mumbles, hands still on his sides, still not making a move to touch Albus. "But if it happens, you'll be the first to know."

The thought of Gellert with another man affects Albus more then he'd like to admit and he decides it's time to change the subject. "We need to figure out who the Death Eaters are working with. If we get you enough blood, can you induce a vision?"

Gellert seems to consider, "It's only been a few days since my last vision, I'd probably not be able to force another one."

Albus nods, "Different means, then."

"Hmm," Gellert slinks his head backwards, looking at the ceiling. "New members are always joining the Death Eaters."

"Yes, but this new member has enough clout to convince the rest not to open the bloodfarm in Godric's Hollow," Albus points out. "Bellatrix would be hard to convince. If she even can be convinced."

"So, what would convince Bellatrix to change?"

Albus thinks. He taught most of the Death Eaters, including Bellatrix and Lucius, who are the undisputed leaders, when they were children at the Hogwarts Academy for Vampires. He knows them well enough to understand how their minds work. And he knows there's only one thing that would make Bellatrix change her mode of operation after all this time.

"Bella would only change if she got a direct order from her master to do so," Albus tells Gellert.

"But her master is asleep," Gellert points out. "She can't speak to him."

"A legilimens could."

"You'd have to be an incredibly powerful legilimens to reach into Riddle's mind," Gellert folds his arms. "No one has ever been able to do so. I don’t think such a powerful legilimens can even exist."

Albus's eyes widen, "No. There is one."

Gellert looks at him expectantly.

"But I was hoping…I hoped he wouldn't join them," Albus sighs. He has hopes for all his students. A quite large one is that they don’t join any hate groups. Is that so much to ask from them?

"Who is it?" Gellert prompts, when the silence between them grows.

"Severus Snape."

****

They smell the thestrals far before they come into view. Al, who's sitting by the window, slaps the newspaper closed and rushes out of the motel room. Gellert, who's been resting on the bed, is only a moment or so behind him.

The three thestrals appear in the pre-dawn sky. A blond haired, blue-clad woman is seated on the middle thestral, or rather, the upper part of her body is emerging from the animal's back. When the winged creatures get close to the ground, the rest of her body appears, slipping out of the creature, and she slips full out of the thestral and jumps off, landing on the ground with grace. Gellert notices she's not wearing any shoes.

"Luna," Albus rushes forward. Luna gives him a dreamy smile as he places a hand on her shoulder.

"I've been trying to find you for a while now," Luna says softly. "The thestrals got tired."

"We just got here a few hours ago, what's going on?" Albus switches to speaking Gaelic, the language he spoke with his mother and that Luna was raised on as well.

"There's a bloodfarm in Alabama, I think Harry went there, and Hermione was captured by the Malfoys and injected with Dead Man's Blood."

She says this with about the same tone most people reserve for discovering the weather, and in the same language as Albus.

"Dead Man's Blood?" Albus repeats, and Gellert can feel the fear began to worm its way inside him.

"I just managed to escape," Luna pets the thestral. "Are you going to save them?"

"Of course we are," Albus snaps, and turns to Gellert. "We'll leave now, it shouldn’t take us more then a day to reach America."

"A bit more to Alabama-"

"We’re not going to Alalbama."

"We're not? Why the hell not?" Gellert sneers.

"Hermione's in grave danger. Luna, you'll go help Harry. If Hermione's been taken by the Malfoys then they've set a trap for us, Gellert."

"I know," Gellert says slowly, feeling slightly like he's speaking to a child, explaining something ridiculously simple. "Which is why I don’t understand why we're walking straight into it."

"Because if we don’t Hermione will be dead," Albus shakes his head as though exasperated. _He's_ exasperated?

"And…?" Gellert prompts.

"Gellert, I think I'd rather you stop talking now," Albus says, nose crinkled, and when Gellert opens his mouth to answer, Albus adds, "You can go with Luna. I'm going to save Hermione."

Rolling his eyes, Gellert says, "I’ll come with you. But if we lose the boy for a mudblood-"

"You're Gaelic is rusty," Albus cuts him off, and Gellert thinks that that was entirely uncalled for.

****

"Garlic?" Ron blinks at Harry, who's holding up two rings in his palms. Each of the rings has ground powder hidden in them. "Why-"

"We don’t want them to be able to smell us, do we?" Harry points out, handing Ron one of the rings as the train rumbles into the station. "Safer this way."

"I don’t mean to be a spoilsport," Ron says, taking the ring and eyeing it suspiciously, "but if they can't smell us, we can't smell them. You really want to do this without a sense of smell?"

"It's not ideal," Harry admits easily. "But it's better then the alternative. Go on then, put it on."

Ron sighs but complies as the train door opens and the passengers began to spill out. It had taken them three days to reach Anniston (they'd run a large portion of the way), and they hadn't had time to feed. They had been forced out in the sun during some of the train and bus rides, and Harry at least is feeling incredibly weak. He'd need to feed before they do anything else.

Luckily, they reach Anniston during early evening, giving them the whole night to go about their business. Harry uses a public phone to try and call Hermione and his apartment, but she doesn’t answer. He had tried a few other times during their trip, but she hadn't picked up.

"What is it?" Ron asks as Harry puts the phone down, frowning.

"Just…getting worried," Harry looks at the phone. He was getting quite concerned. Where could she _be_? "I've been trying to contact Hermione."

"Well, mate, after we close the bloodfarm and find my sister, we'll go find your Hermione."

Harry grins, feeling slightly better, "All right. But first, we need to feed."

****

_There's something different tonight. She can feel it in the air, a tenseness that makes her frightened. There's someone walking back and forth, and she can see their feet once in a while, when they come close to her cot. What is happening? Why are they nervous? Had someone done something wrong?_

_The fear is making its way from the pit of her stomach to her chest. She knows that the others can feel it to, she can sense the fear radiating off them. She wonders if the vampire is going to kill them now. Perhaps they got everything they needed, now._

_"Did you hear?"_

_The voice rumbles into her, causes shivers of pleasure to go down her spine. It's been so long since she heard anyone speak instead of scream. It makes her happier then she can ever express._

_She can't see the person talking, she wishes she could. She wants to witness a conversation, a full, real conversation. Hearing someone talk has jerked her out of her dreamlike state, and she realizes how much she missed it. The yearning for home, which has dimmed over time, comes back to her with full force. All it took was one question._

_"I heard."_

_She tries to concentrate on the voices, discern the difference between them. The one who asked the question was a man, the one who replied a woman. Both have British accents. Perhaps that is what had forced the burning wish to be home into her mind. She misses it, she misses it so badly._

_"We shouldn’t have listened to Snape," The woman says. She's got a beautiful voice, and it's warm. Warm like an all-consuming fire. Warm like something that burns you from the inside out and leaves you as nothing more then a heap of ashes. "We should have gone to Godric's Hollow. The Dark Lord would have been pleased if we had killed Dumbledore for him."_

_"Bellatrix. Snape_ talked _to the Dark Lord. He told him what to do."_

_"I don’t believe that! I don’t believe Snape talks to the Dark Lord!"_

_She flinches. The anger in the woman's voice is terrifying. She can imagine this furious anger ending her life, if it's directed against her._

****

It takes days for the Dead Man's Blood to wash out of her system. During that time Hermione is left in a cell on her own. The blond throws her on the stone floor hard enough to bruise, and leaves her there. The door to the cell is closed, but not locked. What is the point? It wasn't like she could go anywhere anyway.

From her position on the floor, Hermione can see only the ceiling, and she's unable to move, to take any more of the cell in. No matter. The cell holds little to no interest for her. Instead she closes her eyes (the one physical activity she was still able to do) and listens instead.

On the first day, a few minutes after being left alone, she hears the man who carried her say, "We should kill her."

If she could tense, she would.

"We’re not killing her," The woman's voice replies sharply. "We need her."

"What for? Do you really think Dumbledore's going to come for his dirty mudblood?"

"He'll come," Says a new voice, a cold, calculating voice that makes Hermione immediately think, _snake_. He's a snake, a conniving, cunning snake. "He cares about his mudbloods. So. Don’t touch her."

"As if I would!"

"Narcissa, can't you control your son? Draco, your childish antics-"

"Don’t touch my son, Severus," The woman sounds tense, and Hermione can imagine her standing protectively in front of her child.

"I wouldn’t dream of it," The man says silkily.

That's the end of that conversation.

The next time she hears someone talk, she's already lost track of time. It must be a while, because her body is stiff from lying on stone. Her mind has started wondering to strange places. She finds herself remembering a bus ride, when she had stood in the back with her grandmother, who had started sweating profusely because of the heat. A young man sitting beside them had immediately gotten up when they came in, and her grandmother had told her something about appreciating kindness. But in Hermione's mind the man turns into Harry, and when he gets up she opens her mouth to warn him, because if he gets up for her grandmother they could both end up in trouble, you never know who could be watching. But her grandmother tells her, "Don’t worry, child", and she lets them switch positions. That was the wrong thing to do. When she turns to Harry he's turned into the blond vampire, and he's sneering down at her and calling her a dirty mudblood, and it confuses her because that's not what she was called back home.

The day-dream is entirely unpleasant-to say the least-so Hermione is relieved when voices force her out of it.

"I don’t understand why we didn’t just attack Dumbledore and Grindelwald in Godric's Hollow. We could have-"

"Could have what, ambushed them? Don’t be ridiculous," The unknown man says calmly, sounding slightly bored. "We wouldn't be able to defeat _one_ of them in a straight on fight."

The blond boy scoffs, "I don’t believe either of them are as formidable as you make them out to be."

"Then you're an idiot."

"How dare you-" The blond's voice is cut off midway.

" _Draco_ ," That's the voice of the mother. She sounds angry, and then there's the sound of the blond mumbling something that sounds vaguely like ' _fuck_ ', and stomping away.

A few moments of tense silence pass and then the man's voice says, "Your son has no self-control."

"Don’t try and tell me how to parent my child, Severus."

"I'm not interested in how you parent. I am only interested in how your son functions. And as far as I can see your cuddling has left him as an inadequate soldier in this war."

"It was his first mission, it's not his fault he was unable-"

"No, it was your fault, for thinking he'd be capable of taking Lovegood on. Your motherly love ensued that Dumbledore and Grindelwald will have ample warning that we took the mudblood."

"Don’t be ridiculous," The woman sneers. "They will never believe that madwoman."

 _She's not a madwoman!_ Hermione thinks to herself, then cringes inwardly. She said the exact same thing to Harry. God, it sounded so much more disgusting coming from the cruel snarl of the blond.

"Dumbledore believes the madmen. He'll believe Luna."

"So you think he'll come here."

"He'll come."

"Then why _are you so calm_?"

 _Why indeed? Dumbledore will destroy you all_.

"We have some time before they arrive. They're probably in England by now, and it will take time for Luna to contact them, and for them to make their way back here."

"You're making the assumption that they'll both come here. What if they contact the Ministry instead?"

"Grindelwald will not contact the Ministry."

"You sound certain."

"He tried telling them that we reopened the bloodfarms. They refused to believe him, and he's not the kind of man who tries something more then once. He's too intelligent to attempt to beat a dead horse. He knows what the Ministry can and cannot do for them."

****

Harry sneaks through the alley. The man is walking alone, and it's easy to follow him to an unpopulated area. He and Ron had followed the man as he made his way from pub to pub. Inebriated humans were tastier, in Harry's opinion, and they would forget the feeding they'd been subjected to by the morning.

Harry attacks before the man can turn the corner. He grabs the man, putting a hand on his mouth to stop the scream forming in his throat, and jerks his head to the side, exposing a pale neck. His fangs come out and he sinks them deep into the flesh.

The blood rushes out and he laps it all up, every last drop of it. He drinks until he feels the man growing too weak, then retracts his fangs and licks the puncher wounds, watching in satisfaction as they heal immediately. He lets the man, now passed out, fall to the ground.

"Good, you're done," Ron comes up behind him, and Harry turns to see him wiping blood off his face. "Shoul-"

"What are you doin', feedin' in my territory?"

They jump into attention when a figure of a man emerges from the darkness. His clothes and hair are dirty, and his eyes are far too wide.

"Um…" Rom blinks at the man.

"What you doin' here?" The man repeats, slowly, and Harry notices that he seems to blink too little. "This is my territory!"

"There's no such thing as 'territories'," Harry replies. "Every vampire is allowed to hunt where he will."

"No, no. They said I could have this place, this is my place!"

"They said that?" Harry asks calmly. "Why did they tell you that?"

"That's the deal! I get 'em the bloods," The vampire is screaming now, spittle flying out of his mouth. "So you have to leave."

"I think maybe we should talk to them about it," Harry suggests, wondering what he did to deserve the gift of a delusional vampire about to, in all likelihood, hand him the bloodfarm. "Do you mind showing us where they are?"

"Ah. Ya, ya…"


	4. Two Battles

_People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel_

_-Fyodor Dostoyevsky_

"They're here."

Draco jumps up from his sofa chair as Snape comes into the parlor. His mother, whose been reading out loud from _War and Peace_ to Draco, puts the book down and looks up.

"Very well," Mother stands up gracefully. "We've prepared for this, we're ready."

"Ready or no, there's still a large change that this won’t work," Snape says, folding his arms. "We need to be prepared for that eventuality."

"We are," Mother replies, and looks down at Draco. "Go get the girl."

Draco frowns, "I have to touch her again?"

Snape rolls his eyes, "Just get her, Draco."

Anger flares through Draco, "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my father, and you're not my teacher anymore-"

"Draco, do what Severus says. We don’t have time for this," Mother says calmly. She walks over to Draco and takes something out of her pocket. It's a knife, the blade is dark grey with a pattern resembling flowing water itched into it. "Do you know what this is, Draco?"

Draco nods, "Damascus steel." He's never seen Damascus steel in the flesh. It's strange, being so close to something that could hurt him so terribly. He forces down an impulse to take a step backwards.

"That's right," Mother hands the blade over, and Draco swallows hard before taking it. "Get the girl, and when Dumbledore comes, you put this blade to her throat-"

"And slash?" Draco asks. He ignored the squeaky sound his voice makes as he asks the question.

" _No_ , Draco. You will use her to get yourself out of here."

"I don’t need-"

"Shut up," Snape growls. "Just get the girl, you idiot."

Draco opens his mouth to speak, but his mother gives him a sharp look and he decides against it. Instead, he gives as dirty a look as he can muster and stomps out of the room and to the cell down the hall.

The mudblood is still laying on the ground, but she's moving her head now, back and forth. Draco sniffs and crinkles his nose. The _smell_. Gods, the smell is _awful_. They smell different, the mudbloods. Worse than even the halfbloods.

The mudblood turns and looks at him, her eyes narrowing. It's very deceiving, because she's a beautiful woman. Her skin is coffee coloured and smooth, her hair is a mass of perfect black curls, her nose is perfect sculpted, her limps are thin and long. But she's not the beautiful angel she may appear as. Her scent marks her.

"Get up," Draco snaps, and grins. "Oh, wait, you can't."

She rolls her eyes at him, as though disappointed by his joke. He bites his lip in annoyance.

Draco grabs her arm, and roughly tugs her out of the room. He doesn’t like touching her, her skin is far to soft against his own. He gives her a sharp pull, so sharp he can feel her shoulder dislocating. He looks at the mudblood expectantly, waiting for the scream of pain. But the woman just closes her eyes. Her face is contorted with pain, but she makes no sound.

"Filthy mudblood," Draco mumbles again, feeling slightly disappointed he didn’t get any reaction. He takes the mudblood back to the parlor and throws her on the ground.

"Good," Mother says shortly. The mudblood seems to have regained use of her arms. She reaches out and touches her shoulder, and Draco watches with morbid fascination as she grits her teeth and snaps the bone back into place. This time she does let out a little cry, but it's not half as satisfying as Draco thought it would be. "Draco. Stay here with the girl."

"Where are you going?" Draco asks, still displeased about being left behind.

"To fight them," Snape says shortly, and Draco scowls at him. And they're leaving him! Leaving him with-with _her_. He steals a look at the mudblood. She doesn’t appear frightened, she's just massaging her legs, trying to restore feelings to them. Snape walks over and gives her a hard kick, sending her flying back on the ground. She looks up at him and just sneers. He grinds his boot into her fingers, breaking them, and she lets out a little yelp.

Mother comes up to Draco and gives him what he assumes she thinks is a reassuring smile. It doesn’t do much. She places a hand on his head and says calmly, "You'll be fine. Don’t forget who you are, and what you are, and make our family proud."

****

"There they are," The man points. Harry looks past him at the farm house in the distance. They've been running for nearly an hour, meaning they're quite a distance away from Anniston. It looks to Harry like a practical place to hide a bloodfarm: far enough from the city so the screaming victims could not be heard, close enough to find easy prey.

The man has pointed them to the horse stables in the front, and Harry can see through the cracks in the wood that it's not lit from the inside.

"You can ask 'em now," The man is saying. "They'll tell ya this is me territory."

"We’ll ask them," Harry promises. "Let's go in together-"

"No, no, no," The vampire shakes his head, fear suddenly clear in his eyes. "I can't go in without. They'll be mad."

Without more blood bags. Harry had to suppress an urge to eviscerate this vampire right then and there.

"Then go," Harry tells him sharply, his expression adding, _before I kill you_. The vampire is only so happy to comply.

"Let’s go."

"All right," Ron replies, but Harry's barely listening. He's already striding towards the barn, hands clutched into fists, mind ablaze with violent anger. He kicks open the door and storms in.

He's never seen a bloodfarm before. his father had, and once, during Voldemort's reign, and one day Harry had asked about it. He had learned about bloodfarms that day in Hogwarts, and, knowing his father had been in one, had demanded information.

"You don’t want to know about that, Harry," His father had told him sternly.

"They taught us in school!" Harry had objected. "So why won't you tell me?"

"What did you learn at school, Harry?" His father had asked quietly.

"Bloodfarms are places where vampires harvest blood from humans. See? I know everything."

James had laughed, a bitter and cold laughter that had frightened the little boy. James had sighed and said, "I hope you'll never need to know about places like that, Harry."

"But-"

"Enough, Harry. Please."

It was the _please_ that made Harry stop asking, He had never heard his father plead like that.

He understands now why James had not wanted to talk about what he saw.  

There are around twenty of them, men and women. The youngest in his mid-teens, the eldest in mid-twenties. All in the prime of their lives. They're laid down, each in a stall, on narrow cots. Their ankles are cuffed to the cot, and they have no blankets or cushions. They are all dressed in the same white gown which leaves their legs and arms bare.

The humans are thinner than any human Harry had seen alive. They are so thin he can see their rib cages protruding from under the thin material of their gowns, their arms and legs are sticks, flesh sags against their bones with no meat to hold them up. Most of them are missing bits and pieces of their hair, and there are bed sores on their flesh. They try to look up when Harry comes in, but their eyes are blank.

There is no light in them anymore.

****

They don’t try to hide the fact that they're coming. They don't wear garlic or try and sneak their way around. The Malfoys already know they're on their way, and have surely prepared for them.

The Malfoys had spent the past fifty years building a series of mansions all across Europe and North America, all entirely identical. James Potter had once said it showed a 'district lack of imagination', but Albus thinks it shows more a distinct clinging to the past, a past where they were kings, trampling on others to take and take and take. The Malfoys had enjoyed their time as right hands to Riddle, and want a return to that.

As they were before, they are now driven by an ever-growing need for splendor. Albus would call them Hedonists, except they have a level of self-control not seen in most Hedonists.

The mansions themselves reflect their personalities perfectly. Dark and huge, the mansions are constructed of Ashford black marble imported from Derbyshire. Each mansion has two towers, is three stories tall and 8,500 square feet in size. On the front they have a large garden with an enormous, ornate white fountain with sculptured manticores sitting and standing. Peacocks run around the mansions freely.

Animals are treated better then humans in this house.

The peacocks are missing when Albus and Gellert approach the iron gates. He stops before they walk in and observes the ornate decorations itched into the iron. They all show scenes from the Bible, but changed ever so slightly to enhance the stupidity of men: Abraham kills Isaac when he fails to hear the angel's call, Adam and Eve remain naked after eating from the Fruit of Knowledge, King David fails to hit Goliath, resulting in a massacre of his people.

Albus sighs at the excessive display and nods to Gellert to open the gate. Gellert does, quietly, and they walk into the manor grounds.

Immediately, a horrific gurgle sweeps through the gardens, and four quintapeds appear. Albus blinks at the creatures, he hasn't seen one of these in about two hundred years. Each has five legs, a round body covered in red-brown hair, clubbed feet and a large ravenous mouth full of sharp teeth.

"How…"Albus snaps in German, " _how_ did they get quintapeds to New York?" There creatures exist only on the Isle of Drear, and that island has quite a few blood curses placed on it to stop any human from approaching it. And that's for a reason. A very good reason.

Quintapeds eat human and vampire flesh.

"They bred them here," Gellert replies calmly as the creatures walk, or rather _stomp_ , closer. "You can tell by the fact that they're quite fat. They're fed well. And they haven't attacked yet. They're not as vicious as their follows."

"I'm sure they'll still be vicious enough," Albus murmurs, though he does feel slightly better. Lucius Malfoy, he knows, dotes on his various 'pets'. If Gellert is correct then these animals would have spent their entire lives pampered and fussed over. Probably kept in a large, beautiful cage completely unlike their natural habitat. They won’t be used to fighting to get food. They will still attack, though. "Take the two on the left, I'll-"

"Take the two on the right? A thoroughly brilliant plan as ever, my love."

"Sometimes the most straightforward way is the best."

"Ah. That's true."

They attack simultaneously.

The creatures don’t seem to have been expecting an attack. Of course not. They're not used to food that fights. So, Albus manages to grab one of the clubbed feet and bring it into the air before the animal realizes what's happening. The creature's teeth snap, trying to get hold of him, to bite in. One of the club feet swipe at Albus, above his head. He tosses the animal, sending it flying into the air, and turns just in time to see the other hurling towards him.

It's clubbed foot hits Albus squarely in the nose, and he knows from the familiar _crunch_ that it's broken. Blood spills out and Albus groans to himself. The blood causes the animal in front of him to shake. It can smell it, it's getting into a feeding frenzy.

A quick look behind him shows the other quintaped is stomping forwards as well, faster and faster. Albus stands completely still for a moment, watching the man-eating animals come closer and closer, their clubbed feet raising dirt from the ground, their sharp teeth snapping-

At the last moment, he moves to the side with a speed that would astonish even his fellow vampires, and he turns as he moves to see one of the quintapeds biting into where Albus's head was a moment earlier. That space is now occupied by his fellow creature's round body. A horrific sound of pain escapes from the creature, and they fall into fighting one another, their hunger redirected in-species. They're both dead in seconds.

Albus turns to see Gellert finishing his quintapeds off. He had taken the rather direct approach of breaking all of the creature's legs, all ten of them, leaving them squirming on the ground, unable to move, teeth exposed as they open their mouth in screams of pain.

"You have to kill them," Albus says, looking at the creatures with pity. "They're in pain."

"I know," Gellert nods and moves to the creatures. Albus feels slight nausea as Gellert, avoiding the lashing teeth, punches his fist into the creatures' bellies and pulls out their hearts. Tearing them open spirts out their blood, and Geller is quickly covered in it, his arms and chest and stomach turning crimson red and wet.

Albus raises an eyebrow, "That was…needlessly bloody."

Gellert shrugs, licking his pinky and grimacing, "Disgusting." He flicks his gaze to Albus's and grins, "Your nose. Why is it always your nose?"

Albus sighs and puts his fingers to his nose, "It's been broken too many times." He jerks his nose back into place with a _crack_. "I seem to recall _you_ breaking it on more than one occasion."

"True," Gellert replies, unrepented. "Your nose is very breakable."

Albus opens his mouth to reply to that frankly outrageous comment, but he's interrupted by a growling coming from the dark entrance of the mountain. He sighs.

"Our break appears to be over," Gellert says. Albus gives him a dark look. He'll deal with the comment on his _breakable nose_ later.

****

_Something's changed. There's something changing in the air. She tries to look up, but she can't see beyond the wood of her stall. If she could raise her head, maybe she could see, but it's been a long time since she had that kind of energy._

_But there's a noise, a sound, she can hear something. It sounds like something breaking. And then there's a_ thud.

_The sound frightens her. She doesn’t know what it means, but she knows it represents a change in her world. Change can only be bad. She has no expectation of anything good ever happening again. All the good in the world exists in the past alone._

_But then something good happens. She hears someone speaking again. It almost makes her smile. The last time someone spoke, it had awoken something in her, a need for a voice, for any voice that can be heard outside of her own mind. She has been hoping, preying to hear another voice. And how she got her wish._

_The voice says: "We're going to get you out of here, all of you. don't worry."_

_Maybe the voice_ is _in her mind. But it's so pleasant she decides she doesn't mind._

_"Oh, is that what you're going to do?"_

_That voice she knows. It's the angry, angry woman. Now she's confused, because one of the voices is to kind, and the other is appropriately cruel. So, is it real? Is it in her mind?_

_"I know who you are. You're James Potter's bastard little boy, aren’t you? A filthy halfblood."_

_"I'm not a bastard," The voice sounds sweet to her ears. He's angry, she can tell, but then again everyone is angry. "My parents were married."_

_"Your filthy mother was a_ human _."_

_When did 'human' become a curse, for her as well? When did she learn to hate her own identity? She wonders idly if she always hated what she was._

_"I didn’t come here to argue with you, I came-"_

_"You came because you're Dumbledore's lap dog."_

_"Just leave this place, Ms. Lestrange, and you don’t have to get hurt."_

_There's a laughter, and that laughter is so disgusting she wants to die just so she won't have to listen to it anymore. She closes her eyes as the laughter continues, and then she hears it._

_"Bloody hell, what's the matter with you?"_

_No._ No _. It's not real, she's imagining it. She doesn’t want to believe, even for half a moment, that that voice is real. Because if she does, she'll have to face the fact that it's not a moment later._

_But she does believe. She can't help herself, she believes it. And the belief is so strong it makes her open her mouth and croak something out. It's meant to be his name, but she hasn't said anything in so long, that what comes out is something like, "oooonnnnnnn."_

_But it's enough, it seems. Because the next thing she hears is, "Ginny?"_

****

In Durmstrang Institute, the vampire school where Gellert learned and later taught for a time, they have a tradition of sending their seven-year students into an obstacle course, a hedge maze in the middle of the wilderness full of creatures and obstacles designed for the sole purpose of killing vampires (a hard, but not impossible task). The rules are simple: there is really only one. Those who make it out alive graduate. Those who don’t…

Well, they couldn’t use a graduation diploma if they were dead, could they.

The next three hours remind Gellert quite a lot of the mazes. As he and Al make their way through the mansion, they're accosted by one trap and creature after another. First, Red Caps come out into the garden to attack, and Gellert finds himself slightly amused that the Malfoys thought they would be efficient against them. Then, they have to go through a room where hidebehinds have been unleashed, which takes them to a hallway full of traps set to release metal spikes, and Albus throws his suit jacket into it, releasing all the spikes and destroying a perfectly good jacket. Albus takes two of the spikes, throwing one to Gellert.

"Weapons," Gellert rolls his eyes. "They gave us weapons to use against them."

"I'm sure that wasn’t their intention," Al says dryly. "But Severus often underestimates the effect teachers have on students. I know how he and Narcissa think."

"I think you're just smarter then him, love," Gellert replies. Albus likes to think teachers have more control over who their students become then they actually do. It makes him feel like he's making more of a difference then he actually can, rusting away in that school of his. The waste drives Gellert insane.

"Let's keep going," Is all Albus says.

The next room is a huge pool, and they can see a few kappas swimming around in it. Looking down from the doorframe, Gellert is quite impressed. They've built an indoor pool in a few days, not bad. Across the pool is another dark door.

Gellert turns back to the hallway they came from, but all the doors lead to empty rooms. Sadly, he makes his way back to the pool, finding Albus is still looking down at the kappas swimming around, the spike held tightly in his hand.

"Don’t have any cucumbers, do you?" Albus asks. Gellert looks down at the swimming creatures that can be diverted from drinking their blood with a _cucumber_. How can he take them seriously? "Didn’t think so."

"We can hit them with the spikes."

"I'd rather not, they'll destroy them and we may need them later."

"We can distract them with blood, but it won't give us more then a few seconds after we land in the water."

"How long do you think it would take you to swim across?"

"A few seconds," Gellert replies. "We may or may not make it, hard to tell."

Albus raises an eyebrow, "Well. No point in procrastinating."

He bites down into his own wrist and Gellert watches as he allows the blood to drip into the water. The creatures swim over at the smell, and Albus sucks his own blood as the wound heals and jumps into the water. Geller joins him, and they swim as quickly as they can.

Gellert is slightly faster then Al, and he reaches the edge, pulling himself out. Then he turns, just in time to see Al go under.

Within milliseconds, red blood pours up towards him. Gellert growls in anger at the realization that Albus is being torn apart, and jumps back into the water.

He's bitten right away, but gives it no thought as he makes his way to the bottom of the pool. Albus is fighting about twenty kappas all at once, his blood spilling all over, his clothes torn apart, the metal spike already lost. Gellert grabs Albus's wrist and pulls him towards him. The blood floods towards him and the kappas attack.

It's very useful that vampires don't need to breathe, because the battle they engage in with the creatures goes on for about half an hour. Thankfully, Albus joins in after detaching himself from Gellert's hold, but by the end of it Gellert's still full of bruises and bite marks, and Albus is so weak Gellert needs to carry him out of the water. But the kappas are all dead.

Gellert pulls Albus into the hallway and leans him on the wall. Albus shivers, his whole body covered by blood. His clothes are torn, so Gellert can see his skin as it slowly knits itself back together. He's lost too much blood. Gellert closes the door behind them.

"This is getting ridiculous," He growls, and bites into his own wrist. "You need blood. Take."

Albus shivers violently and grabs at the wrist, bringing it closer. Gellert feels the shiver of excitement as lips connect with flesh and Al starts to suck in his blood. His whole body grows warm from the touch. It's a familiar feeling. It makes his skin crawl and his groin itch. He sighs with satisfaction.

He glances at Al, and stops when he realizes Albus is staring at him with wide eyes. Gellert looks at himself, and realizes his white shirt is slashed open and stuck to his skin by the water, exposing his form. He raises an eyebrow, "Is now really the time?"

He feels quite pleased with himself as Albus turns away, flushed.

 _I'll take care of you later, love_ , he promises to Al silently as the other vampire stands up and starts walking down the hall ahead of him. _I’ll have you as soon as we're out of this pathetic mess you put us in._

****

"Ginny?" Ron yells out, horrified. It's Ginny, he's sure of it. He knows his baby sister's voice. And it's coming from one of the stalls.

Fury pulses through him. They have her here, they're bleeding her like a pig. His eyes turn to the black-haired woman, who's watching with narrowed eyes.

"Ginny!" Ron yells out, and jumps forwards, towards the voice, towards his sister, but Bellatrix Lestrange (because that's who she is, he's seen her pictures, and the fact that she's escaped from Azkaban is not something he wants to think of right now) moves forward as well, faster than him, and before he knows what is happening, a punch is forced into his face. He hears something break and is sent flying through the air. As he crashes into one of the stalls, breaking the wood with his body, he sees a second vampire rush in, a man with long blond hair. But he doesn’t have time to think about it, because when he looks to the side, he sees her.

Lying on her cot, eyes trained on him. Her beautiful red hair has thinned, her emerald green eyes have dimmed. But it's her, oh gods, it's her. She's been here all this time, used and wasting away.

"Ginny," He whispers. From the corner of his eyes he sees Harry fighting the two vampires, but his mind is full of Ginny. He can't see anything other then her. "Oh, Ginny. I'm so sorry, I didn’t know."

He wraps his arms around her. She's so thin, she's barely there. How could he have let this happen to her? He's supposed to protect her, that's his job, he's her older brother.

"I'm going to get you out of here," Ron tells her forcefully. "I'm going to-"

"Oooo elllppp mmmmm."

"Shh, don't try and speak now," Ron whispers. His eyes are trained on Ginny's. They're dark. They used to be alight, but now they're in the dark. "G-"

"Ggggoooo eeeeeellllllppppp eemmm," Ginny tries to say again, and this time there's a spark of something in her eyes.

"Go help him?" Ron blinks, and Ginny gives him another look. This time he realizes what's reflecting in her eyes. Frustration. She's frustrated.

That he's not helping.

"I'm not leaving-"

"Gooooo!"

"Ron!" Harry suddenly comes crashing into Ginny's stall, landing on the floor next to them. He's bleeding and bruised, and Ron thinks, _I'm so useless. I left my sister to be used and left my friend to be beaten up. Bloody hell, bloody hell._

"Harry!" Ron puts Ginny down gently on the cot and rushes over to Harry. He coughs as he stands up, brushing himself.

"Come on," Harry gasps. "We need to-"

He suddenly frowns and moves forward, "They're not attacking."

They aren’t, which _is_ a bit strange. Ron follows Harry out of the ruined stall, and sniffs.

"Do-do you small that?" He asks.

Harry nods, eyes hardening, "They've left the barn, Ron. They've set it on fire."

"Oh," Ron says dryly. "Brilliant, mate."

****

He can smell them as he and Gellert approach the ballroom. Severus and Narcissa are there, along with Crab, Goyle, Nott, and others. All in all there are twenty one of them, almost all of the Death Eaters.

"How touching," Gellert says. "They've brought the whole platoon."

Albus rubs his face and sighs deeply. He's tried and weak from loss of blood. After the kappas they had to fight off a terrified and confused mountain troll, and had been forced to kill him-one of the last of his kind. And then there as a room covered in wooden spikes, and they lost the metal spike to the room of fire breathing chickens (that was a strange one). He's not exactly at his best. But Hermione is waiting for him to save her, and Gellert is looking at his expectantly.

"Are you ready?" Gellert asks.

"Ready," Albus sighs, and they walk in.

The twenty one vampires are holding wooden stakes and are dressed in black robes, their hoods drawn up. He can't see their faces, but of course he doesn’t need to see their faces to know who they are.  They wear those robes to intimidate, and to mark themselves out as different, as separate from others. As superior.

"Listen to me," Albus says softly, looking at his former students one by one. "You don’t have to do this. You can walk away from this, all of you."

A soft laughter rumbles through the crowd and Severus says, slight amusement in his voice, "Always trying to be the better man, Professor. And yet here you are, walking side by side with Gellert Grindelwald."

"You think I'm like you, Death Eater?" Gellert scoffs disdainfully. "You thrive on chaos and madness. Your leader uses the excuse of his ideology to enable his own and your rise to power. You are all pathetic creatures seeking nothing but your own pleasure."

A few moments of silence pass as the Death Eaters stare, stunned and unable to speak. And then they attack.

****

 _She thinks,_ I'm finally going to die. _It doesn’t bother her so much, not now that she's seen Ron. It bothers he to think that he may die as well, but he's a vampire, he's strong. She's the weak one, she's always been the weak one. They've always told her that, with their actions if not their words. Poor human Ginny, poor little Squib. Best to send her away to America on her own, best she enter the human world. She has now, this is her in the human world. This is what they subjected her too, leaving her all alone. She would hate them if she didn’t love them so much._

_She can smell the smoke, she can see the flickering of the fire, she can hear her brother and the other vampire smashing down the wall behind her. There's a sudden influx of air, and her hair is pushed backwards. She's colder then she was before. She forgot how cold vampire's arms are when they hold her. She missed them, gods, she missed them so bloody much._

_"We need to get them out," The sweet voice says. "Immediately."_

_She can feel the heat of the flames coming towards her._

_"They’re all shackled to the bloody cots," Ron rushes back to her. She hears the chains rattling, and breaking. And as she's picked up and taken out of the bed, she feels it. It hits her._

_The pain. It sears through the feet, going up her legs. It's hot, burning hot, it breaks her inside and out, it opens her up and empties her of everything. She's emptied of her thoughts, of her past, of her memories, of her whole being. And into that empty husk that used to be Ginny Weasley, one thing is poured in. Agony._

_Agony is not pain. Pain can be controlled, pain doesn’t take over. But agony. Agony is not a feeling. Agony is a state of being. Agony becomes your new reality. Agony leaves no place for anything else._

_The agony takes hold of her, and she just has enough time to think,_ that's the fire _, before she's gone._

****

The Death Eaters attack all at once. Gellert notices in pleasure that a few of them are shivering slightly in anger. His words had affected them, clearly. People are always annoyed and frustrated when confronted by their own faults.

Gellert jumps into the air as around five Death Eaters approach. He kicks and punches, and grabs at the wooden spikes. He knows that Albus will probably try to refrain from killing their enemies, but he has not such scruples. He attacks, breaking limps and slashing with his fangs and claws.

Gellert learned a long time ago that when you fight more then two opponents at the same time, you must rely solely on your instincts and body. With so many attackers thinking and acting on their own, you didn't have the time to _think_ about your movements. One moment spent _thinking_ and not _acting_ could end your life. So, you let your body move on its own, letting your mind go as you give control over to the hundreds of years' worth of fighting experience.

He's lost in the haze of battle, in that blissful bloodlust, as he dismembers the Death Eaters, stakes them in the heart, slashes their heads off, stabs his way into their chests and takes their hearts right out. He doesn’t know how long the fight goes on, it doesn't really matter, but eventually he finds himself standing above the bodies, without anyone else to fight.

He's slightly disappointed. It had been fun.

Turning to look at Albus, he's unsurprised to see that he hasn't killed any of his opponents. He's drained them of all their blood, which leaves them in a coma-like status. That's how Riddle was left, and still is. They will only be woken up by having around a gallon and a half of blood fed to them.

Both Snape and Narcissa Malfoy are drained of blood. That could be useful.

"How did you drain them so quickly?" Gellert asks.

"Cut their throats," Albus shrugs. "Then I put pieces of the spikes in the wound, so they couldn't heal and kept on spilling out blood."

"It probably would have been easier – you know what, never mind."

"Yes, never mind," Albus murmurs, eyes trained far away. "We have more important things to do."

****

The fires are raging all around him, the smoke pushing into his lungs. Fear is gnawing in his stomach, making his fingers slack. He leaves Ron with his sister (he doesn't have enough place in his mind to be appropriately shocked by _that_ coincidence) and goes over to the next stall. The fire is making its way from the front of the stables towards them. He doesn’t have a lot of time to save them. Most of the humans are probably dead by now from smoke inhalation. He has to get the living ones out.

He rushes to the nearest stall. There's a man on it, a young brown-haired man with closed eyes. For half a moment Harry thinks he's already dead, but then he hears his heart beat. It's shallow and weak, but it's still there. Harry rushes over to him, coughing from the smoke, and grabs the chair, breaking it.

"Come on," He whispers urgently, sweeping the young man up in his arms. "I'm getting you out of here."

The man doesn’t answer, his eyes sill closed. Harry turns to leave the stall, but the fires are raging right outside.

"Shit, shit!" He swears. The smoke is weakening him, quickly. He turns to the wall behind him and kicks at it. The wood shutters, and cracks appear, but it stays in place. Harry coughs again. The weight of the man, little as it is, is slowing him down. The thought sickens him, and he feels the need to say, "I won’t leave you."

The man's eyes flicker slightly open, and stares at him blankly. Harry turns back to the fire, it's taken the cot now. He has one more chance.

Harry closes his eyes. one more hit. If he doesn’t get it, he'll burn, and so will this man. He won't be able to save him. And he has to save him.

 _You can heal,_ he tells himself. _if you burn, you won’t die, you can heal all your wounds. He can't._ He kicks forward, throwing the man forward as he back is engulfed in flames. With his last conscious thought, he forces himself to jump forward as well. Then his mind is taken over by the flames licking his back.

The last thing he registers is the fact that the man's heart has stopped.

****

The blond vampire is shivering as he places the cold metal to her skin and growls, "Do you know what this is?"

 _He's scared_ , Hermione thinks. _He's scared of what they want him to do._ The knowledge fills her with the sense of power, because unlike him, she feels no fear. The only thing she feels is ready.

"That's Damascus steel," Hermione replies calmly. "It's a metal that can only be created with the use of blood magic."

"And-and do you know what it will do to you, if I cut your throat with it?"

"I will die. If you cut me with Damascus steel my skin will heal at the same rate as a human's would," Hermione answers. Dumbledore taught her all of this, since she was not allowed to go to Hogwarts, being a human-born vampire.

"That's right, mudblood," He's still shaking. "So don’t move, or I'll cut you-"

"Have you ever murdered anyone before?" Hermione asks quietly.

"Of course I have! I've fed-"

"Killing for food is not the same. If you kill me now, you'll be murdering me, you'll be killing for no purpose."

"Shut up! Shut up, or I'll-"

"I don’t think you can," Hermione looks around the parlor. She's still feeling weak and she doubts she'll be able to take her captor on one-on-one. If she could get the blade…but then she'll be the one forced to murder. She doesn't even kill when she feeds. "And I don’t think you want to."

"Stop talking, or I swear to the gods-" He's shaking so hard that the blade slips and cuts Hermione shallowly. She hisses in pain as the blood trickles down her neck into the crevasse between her breasts.

The vampire gasps at the blood, and moves backwards. Hermione realizes that she was more right then she thought. He's not scared of hurting her, he's terrified. She turns around and attacks, pushing the vampire backwards. The blond- she can't seem to think of him by the name she heard his mother refer to him, he doesn’t deserve to be, for lack of a better word, _humanized_ like that- stumbles backwards, the blade growing slack in his grasp. She moves to it without thought, grabbing it and kicking the blond backwards. He tumbles to the ground, unarmed.

Hermione jumps on top of him, landing on his chest and placing the blade to his throat.

"My turn," She whispers savagely. "Do you know what this is?"

He gaps at her.

" _Do you know what this is_?"

"Damascus steal," The vampire whispers.

"Yes, it is," Hermione finds her mind flooding with furious anger. "So. Don’t move."

He blinks up at her and then says, "Don't touch me with those filthy hands."

The words seem to be wretched out of him, like he hasn't planned to speak, like the words had came out of their own accord.

She doesn’t stop to think about what she's doing, and stabs him in the shoulder.

The vampire screams as the blade slips into his flesh, squirting out blood. It hits Hermione's face and she grins at the blond, his eyes growing in horror at the sight of her, covered in his blood. Slowly, to maximize the pain, she takes the blade out. The vampire screams, tears streaming down his cheeks. He's not used to pain. If it had been Harry, for instance, he wouldn’t have made a single sound, wouldn't have given his attacker the satisfaction.

"Pathetic," Hermione growls and pushes off the vampire, standing up. "I'm going to kill you now."

He just cries harder. He's not even trying to move.

"Oh," Hermione shakes her head in realization. "You're just a coward, aren't you? Just a scared little boy. I'm going to kill you, you filthy little _boy_."

She raises the blade to hit the blond in the chest-

But she's grabbed from behind and jerked backwards, and she looks up to see she's pressed against Dumbledore's chest.

"Let me go!" Hermione growls, clawing at Dumbledore's chest, cutting ribbons of skin off his flesh. "Let me go!"

"No," Dumbledore whispers to her, close to her ear, completely unnerved by his own bleeding. His presence doesn’t have the comforting effect it usually has on her. "I won’t."

"I'm going to kill you," Hermione screams at the vampire lying on the floor. He's starting to sit up, she can see, holding his bleeding shoulder. Grindelwald walks over and slashes the vampire's throat with his claws. "I'm going to kill him!"

"You're not going to kill him, Hermione," How can he stay so calm? She wants to kill him, as well. It's his fault. How could he do this to her, make her into a vampire, knowing she would be stuck forever as an inferior member of society? At least before, she knew there was an end, knew that eventually she would die. She would die and go to Heaven. Now Heaven is closed to her. She's trapped.

"He would have killed me," Hermione growls.

"I know," Albus replies calmly. "But you are not him."

"No," Hermione laughs a bitter laughter, "I'm not. Because he's a pureblood and I'm-"

"Because he's a scared little child and you are not," Dumbledore lets Hermione go so suddenly she stumbles away from him. "But go ahead, if you think it's the right thing to do, killing him when he's weak and defenseless."

Hermione looks at the blond vampire. Draco. That's his name. Draco. He looks up at her, fear and pain in his eyes, and she can't. She can't bring herself to do it.

"Well?" Dumbledore asks quietly, hands on his hips, looking at her with a tilted head.

"I can’t," Hermione turns away. "Can't sink to their level."

"That's my girl."

"Excuse me," Grindelwald clears his throat. "I don’t mean to break off this charmingly sweet moment, but if your mudblood isn't going to kill him, can I-"

"We're taking him with us," Dumbledore interrupts. "And if you call Hermione a mudblood again, I will find away to make the rest of your life very, very miserable."

****

Ginny's breath is shallow, her eyes closed. She passed out a few moments earlier, and Ron is grateful for small mercies. Her screams of pain when her feet had caught fire had driven Ron half mad. He doesn’t know if he could have taken any more of it.

He places her gently on the ground and looks back. The barn is completely ingulfed by fire, anyone still in is dead. Where is Harry? Ron takes a step forward, and then he sees him, jumping out of the barn just as it explodes. As he jumps out of the barn, Harry throws the limp body of a human man in front of him. Ron groans as he hears Harry's screams of pain. He rushes forward towards Harry as his friend's back is ingulfed in flame.

"Harry!" Ron throws his jacket on Harry's back, extinguishing the flames. Harry's screams die down as his wounds begin to slowly heal, and Ron leans down next to him. "Are- are you all righ-"

He doesn’t know what it is, the feeling that spreads through him.  He's never felt that way before. It's inside of him, the feeling, worming around. He looks down and sees, where his chest once was, a fist. A white fist, holding something red and beating.

Everything slows down. The next millisecond spreads out across centuries. He knows what is happening. He's dying. The world is slowed down just for him, giving him time. He wants to turn and look at his sister, but he can't move. He can hear, though. He can hear laughter, a cruel, mad laughter.

_That's the person who's killing me._

He wishes the last voice he heard wasn't that of the person killing him. He wonders, if he hadn’t moved to safe Harry, would he have heard the approaching vampire, would he have been able to survive?

But then Harry would have still been on fire, wouldn't have been able to defend himself, and would have died. Ron doesn’t mind, not really, dying for his friend.

As time stretches out in front of him he goes back, back to his childhood. He remembers his father exidedly showing them a lightbulb, the first one they'd ever seen, how his father had proclaimed humans 'geniuses, how do they come up with this?' His mother had rolled her eyes, his brothers had giggled. He had watched the light.

The light flickers off, inside of him, like a lamp being slowly turned off, and he thinks that maybe what he's feeling is _cold_. He thinks he understands why Ginny never wanted to be turned, why she had told him once, 'I'd rather spent one lifetime being able to feel then a thousand not.' It's a rather pleasant feeling.

'It's pleasant to feel,' Ginny whispers in his mind.

****

Harry watches in horror, unable to move, still healing, as a fist comes through Ron's chest, and takes out his heart. Ron looks down at his own heart and blinks. And then he's gone.

He's gone.

Bellatrix Lestrange pushes Ron's limp body to the ground and moves towards Harry. His mind is blurry, he's finding it hard to think. He wants to stand up, to fight, to _destroy_ this monster. But his body can't move. He's unsure if it's shock or his wounds keeping him in place. He isn’t sure how to fight if it's the former.

Lestrange looks down at him, her mad eyes wide, "He didn’t even put up a fight."

"Shut up," Harry gasps, clutching bits of grass, trying to force his body up. "Shut up, stop talking!"

"Oohhh, poor little baby Potter, are you going to cry?"

She walks towards him and grabs at his hair, pulling his head up. She grins at him, her breath staining his already broken glasses. He growls, swinging his hand to the woman. But she avoids the hand with a grin, as if she's playing with a child.

Harry can't look at her, his eyes move to Ron's still ones, and his red hair is exactly like his sister's, and his sister is the only human still alive from the bloodfarm. He failed, he failed so badly.

"I'll bring your father your body after I finish with you, Potter," Lestrange growls, and all Harry can think is, _I don’t have time, Ginny's dying_. He can hear her breath growing more and more shallow. "I'll watch that blood traitor cry like a baby for his bastard."

That's when he hears it, the _wooshing_ of wings approaching, and he grins slightly.

"Is that what you think?" Harry whispers. "We’ll see about that."

"She won’t," Luna's dreamy voice replies, and Harry falls to the ground as he is let go and Lestrange and Luna begin their fight.

Harry doesn’t waste a second. He leaves the two vampires to their furious fight and jumps up, back still healing and painful. He rushes forward to Ginny and cradles her head in his lap. He doesn’t have time for shock, he doesn’t have time for pain. Ginny needs him.

"Hi," Harry whispers at the girl. She looks up at him with calm eyes. She's resigned to death. "I'm Harry."

Ginny smiles softly, and her eyes flicker close.

"Hi, Ginny! Ginny, open your eyes, open them!" His heart is pumping in his chest. He's failed one sibling, he won't fail the other. He won't. He bites down on his wrist and holds it to Ginny's lips.

She makes no sound and doesn’t move to take the blood, but when a drop hits her dry lips, her tongue comes out to lap it in, and she chokes, then tilts her head slightly to reach the wrist and starts to drink vigorously. The burning stable illuminates them as Harry watches Ginny transforms. Her red hair grows long and lush, her wounds are healed, her skin grows less pale, and flesh is added to her body, filing up her too thin-limps. Her eyes grow clear again, and they're a beautiful emerald hue. She gasps, and as she opens her mouth fangs appear. Her fingernails curl into claws and she lashes out, slicing into the air.

"It's all right, it’s ok," Harry whispers, ducking as Luna is thrown into the air past them. His eyes follow her in the air, and she lands on the grass, causing the ground to shake. She gets up and ruffles her hair before rushing past them and attacking Lestrange again. "You're just turned."

"No, oh no," Ginny gasps.

Harry frowns, slowly getting up with Ginny in his hands. He hears a _neighing_ voice behind them and turns to see the thestral.

"Oh, hello there," Ginny mumbles and reaches out to the animal. Harry hears a scream and turns to see Lestrange has just had her arm torn off her body, and blood spirting all around. She falls to the ground, her remaining hand cradling her amputated arm, placing it back in place to reattach itself. Harry grimaces. "You're beautiful."

Harry places Ginny on the thestal, and turns to look at Luna, who is being pounded into the ground. He jumps up on the thestral and yells, "Luna! Come!'

Luna grabs Lestrange's arms and tosses her into the air. Without looking back, she runs over to the thestral, Lestrange on her heels.

"Go, go, go!" Harry whispers to the thestral, who flaps his wings once and takes off, flying towards Luna.

Harry leans forward, hand in the air, and grabs at Luna. They raise into the air, with Luna swinging under them, held only by Harry's arm, and he watches in horror as Lestrange reaches to grab at Luna as well. She misses her by an inch.

Lestrange screams in frustration as they raise into the air. As they're flying away from the burning barn, Ginny whispers, "Where's Ron…?"


	5. Epilogue

_And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed_

_-John Steinbeck_

The apartment is quiet and empty when Harry walks in. The lights are off, the window's open and wind is rushing through the living room. There's no sign of Hermione or Dumbledore.

Almost as soon as Harry walks into the apartment. He rushes over to answer.

"Who is it?" Harry gasps.

"Harry?" Hermione's voice makes his heart beat slow down. "Oh, gods, Harry!"

"Hermione, thank the gods," Harry closes his eyes briefly. "Are you all right? Where are you?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Where have you _been_? We've been trying to call for days-"

"I went to Alabama, we found the bloodfarm-"

"Yes, we heard," That's Dumbledore's voice, and Harry jumps up.

"Professor! Professor, Bellatrix Lestrange had a bloodfarm. Luan told me about it and-"

"I know. And you went there. That was incredibly reckless."

Harry swallows, "I know." Of course he knew. Ron died because of it.

"We'll talk about it later, right now I need you to listen. Is Luna with you?"

"She's waiting outside with…" _With Ginny_ , "Why?"

"I need you to come to Grimmauld Place."

"Grimmauld Place?  You mean Sirius's home?" Harry frowns.

"Yes. Your godfather was kind enough to give us use of his ancestral home for the new headquarters. I think we need a place in North America," Dumbledore sighs deeply. "It appears that Europe is no longer the center of the Death Eaters' attentions."

"All right. We'll come as quickly as we can."

"Excellent. I'll see you in Canada. Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes, Professor?"

"I don’t know what it is, but I can tell by your voice that something happened. And whatever it is, I'm sorry."

Harry blinks down at the floor and is surprised to see tears dripping down. When was the last time he cried? The answer comes immediately. When his mother died.

"We'll talk more face to face, Harry."

****

"Wake up. Sirius, wake up. _Wake up_!"

"I'm awake," Sirius groans, throwing a cushion in the general vicinity of the voice trying to force him to leave his rather pleasant dream. He hears a _thud_ as it hits the floor. Clearly he should have tried harder.

"Padfoot!"

" _What_?" Sirius finally opens his eyes.

James looks down at him, hands ticking on his hip. A sure sign of concern. "Get up. Dumbledore contacted us."

Sirius jumps up immediately. That was never good.

****

"Grindelwald called me," Vinda says as she bursts into his room. "We're leaving."

"Leaving?" Credence winces as she slams open his closet and starts pulling out clothes. "Why?"

"Don’t ask questions," She snaps. "Just get a bag ready as quickly as possible, understand?"

****

"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" He roars, causing his class to jump up again. "You must always be prepared for attack! So can somebody explain to me why-"

The class door opens and he throws a knife at it. Constant vigilance.

McGonagall catches the blade between her two fingers and raises an eyebrow, "Professor Moody, I could have been a student."

Moody huffs, "A student should learn to knock."

"Aha," McGonagall glares. "Can I have you for a moment?"

There's something going on.

"Read pages one twenty two onwards," He instructs the students and stomps out of the room after McGonagall, closing the door behind them. "What happened?"

"Dumbledore called," McGonagall says quietly, so quietly the students beyond the door would not be able to hear, even if they were trying to, and Moody very much doubts they'd dare eavesdrop.

"It's started again. I knew it would."

"Yes, it seems it has," McGonagall turns her head to the door, to the students beyond. "We need to go."

****

Dumbledore and Grindelwald call their people, giving everyone roughly the same message.

_The Death Eaters have regrouped. Come to Grimmauld Place. It's time to restart the Order of the Phoenix._


End file.
